Based on an analysis of high-frequency panel data for U.S. firms, this paper finds that inventory investment has been liquidity-constrained in most periods during 1975-97, but less so, or not at all, during recessions. This result can be justified on the grounds that inventory fluctuations are...

Output gap estimates are subject to a wide range of uncertainty owing to data revisions and the difficulty in distinguishing between cycle and trend in real time. This is important given the central role in monetary policy of assessments of economic activity relative to capacity. We show that...

The Global Integrated Monetary and Fiscal model (GIMF) is a multi-region, forward-looking, DSGE model developed by the Economic Modeling Division of the IMF for policy analysis and international economic research. Using a 5-region version of the GIMF, this paper illustrates the model’s...

Despite positive but mixed progress over two decades, most lower income African countries need to enhance their low tax-to-GDP ratios by mobilizing domestic resources to complement debt relief, donor aid and to achieve the MDG and poverty reduction objectives. With these goals in mind, most...

A key feature of the invoice-credit form of value-added tax (VAT) is that some businesses- notably exporters-will pay more tax on their purchases than is due on their sales, and so can seek refunds of excess credits from government. While refunding is straightforward in principle, serious...

This paper contains a proposal (referred to as the "modified reverse-charging" approach) to tax financial intermediation services under a VAT. At the heart of the proposal is the application of a reverse charge that shifts the collection of the VAT on deposit interest from depositors to banks,...

In this paper, we study the optimal mix of monetary and macroprudential policies in an estimated two-country model of the euro area. The model includes real, nominal and financial frictions, and hence both monetary and macroprudential policy can play a role. We find that the introduction of a...

This Selected Issues paper on the Republic of Poland constructs a financial conditions index for Poland to explore the link between financial conditions and real economic activity. Measures to contain the fiscal deficit in the aftermath of the global financial crisis led to a reduction in the...

The main purpose of this paper is to construct a financial conditions index (FCI) for South Africa. The analysis extracts the index by applying two alternative approaches (principal component analysis and Kalman filter), which identify an unobservable common factor from a group of external and...