This 2008 Article IV Consultation highlights that Egypt's economic performance since 2004 has been generally impressive, underpinned by a supportive external environment and the structural reform program that has included the liberalization of foreign trade, investment, and the exchange market....

Unit value export and import indices compiled from returns to customs authorities are often used as surrogates for price indices in the measurement of inflation transmission, terms of trade (effects), and to deflate import and export value series to derive volume series. Their widespread use is...

Is the recent proliferation of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) in Asia a healthy development, or runs the risk of turning into an unmanageable "noodle bowl" in the future? The goal of this paper is to shed some light on this question. The results show that membership in the Asian RTAs...

Export and import price indices are essential for assessing the impact of international trade on the domestic economy. Among their most important uses are analyzing developments in the trade balance, measuring foreign prices' contribution to domestic inflation, and deflating nominal values of...

This 2004 Article IV Consultation highlights that economic growth in New Zealand slowed in early 2003 but rebounded in the latter part of the year. Real GDP growth declined from 4¼ percent in 2002 to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 2¾ percent in the first half of 2003, amid...

This Selected Issues paper and Statistical Appendix examines banking sector developments in the Republic of Tajikistan. The paper estimates quasi-fiscal activities in the energy sector, and provides an assessment of external sector trade and the need for further trade reform. Developments in the...

The effect of exchange rate volatility on trade flows was examined by a 1984 IMF study on G-7 countries. Over the past two decades, many developments in the world economy, such as the currency crises in the 1990s and increasing cross-border capital flows, may have exacerbated exchange rate...

The role of exchange rate flexibility in the periphery of the gold standard has been grossly overlooked. This paper builds a new dataset on trade-weighed exchange rates for the period 1870-1913 and finds that large currency movements in periphery countries operating inconvertible paper-money and...

This paper examines the effect of the major Canada-U.S. trade agreements on the dynamics of business cycles and productivity in Canada. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its predecessor, the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA), have led to a substantial expansion of trade...

This paper presents an overview of the economy of Hungary. The paper highlights that during the Fifth Five-Year Plan (1976–80), actual growth rates for almost all major plan aggregates remained below the targets. The lower targets set for the increase in both consumption and investment in...