Discussions centered on the preparations for the 2015/16 budget, and reforms to strengthen the financial sector and boost growth. The authorities have deepened their efforts in supporting their ambitious fiscal goals by strengthening public financial management and revenue administration, and...

This paper discusses Jamaica’s Second Review Under the Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and Request for Modification of Performance Criteria. Program performance is on track despite the difficult economic environment. All end-September quantitative performance...

This paper discusses Jamaica’s First Review Under the Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and Request for Modification of Performance Criteria. All end-June quantitative conditions and all structural benchmarks were met. The 2013/14 budget is in line with the...

This Selected Issues paper summarizes estimates of the gap between current housing prices and their equilibrium levels in the United States. It examines short-term dynamics of price adjustment. Reflecting uncertainties about how to analyze underlying housing price trends, two approaches are used...

This 2009 Article IV Consultation focuses on euro area policies. The euro area remains in recession, with signs of improvement yet to evolve into a recovery. The large drop in financial wealth, an associated increase in private savings, tight financing conditions, and the adjustment of global...

Effective arrangements for micro and macroprudential policies to further overall financial stability are strongly desirable for all countries, emerging or advanced. Both policies complement each other, but there can also be potential areas of overlap and conflict, which can complicate this...

This paper analyzes empirically the recent Asian financial crisis using high frequency data of exchange rates and stock indices of the Philippines and Thailand. Utilizing standard time-series techniques, this study confirms that there is evidence that developments in some sectoral...

We test for the existence of a moral hazard effect attributable to official crisis lending by analyzing the evolution of sovereign bond spreads in emerging markets before and after the Russian crisis. The nonbailout of Russia in August 1998 is interpreted as an event that decreased the perceived...

This paper discusses the role of asset management companies (AMCs) in facilitating bank restructuring and specifies some policy lessons learned from international experience. The paper concludes that there is no single optimal solution but a combination of strategies that will vary from bank to...