This paper presents the staff report for Peru’s 2008 Article IV Consultation, Fourth Review and Inflation Consultation under the Stand-By Arrangement and request for waiver of applicability of performance criteria. Peru has been liberalizing external trade through tariff reductions in...

This 2011 Article IV Consultation highlights that the economy of Trinidad and Tobago is turning the corner, and growth is expected to resume in 2012 after an extended slowdown lasting three years. Real economic activity is expected to increase by 1.7 percent in 2012 as the nonenergy sector picks...

In this paper, the IMF's new Global Economy Model (GEM) is used to estimate the contribution of unbalanced growth to the decline in the share of goods production in Australia and New Zealand. The simulation results suggest that faster productivity growth in the tradable goods sector in...

This paper summarizes the macroeconomic performance of the transition economies. We first review the initial conditions confronting these economies, the reform strategy that was proposed, and the associated controversies that arose a decade ago. We then account for the widely different outcomes,...

The proximity of the European Union, the prospect of membership, and actual entry by the New Member States (NMS) increased economic and financial integration in the region, leading to fast economic growth based on sizeable capital inflows. EU membership helped in developing sound macroeconomic...

This paper presents the primary institutions and economic policies that have led to Chile’s remarkable record of stability and growth over the past twenty years. The core of this policy stance is the combination of fiscal discipline and an open trade policy regime, together with carefully...

This paper presents a survey of the literature on the measurement of central bank autonomy. We distinguish inputs that constitute the building blocks in the literature, and the literature that builds on them. Issues including sensitivity analysis, robustness, and endogeneity are discussed. The...

This paper evaluates the demand for broad money (M2) in The Gambia for January 1988-June 2007. There appears to be a long-run relationship for demand for real M2, but the relationship is not stable. Exogenous output shocks, financial innovation, changes in income velocity, and inadequate data...

The United Kingdom’s 2005 Article IV Consultation reports that macroeconomic performance has been strong and steady, owing in part to confidence-enhancing policy frameworks and generally sound implementation. The financial system is generally healthy, although a substantial increase in...

This paper investigates the link between macroeconomic performance and the change in the poverty rate among 47 episodes of growth and 52 episodes of economic downturn in developing and transition economies. We show that, on average, (i) the greater the inequality, the lower the elasticity of...