Israel was mildly affected by the global recession: following a slowdown in 2009, output is projected to grow by some 4 percent in 2010, led by consumption and exports. Robust fundamentals—including sustained pre-crisis fiscal consolidation—and a swift monetary and fiscal policy...

This Selected Issues paper on Samoa reviews limitations to the existing framework of monetary policy, and suggests ways to improve its effectiveness. It examines current instruments at the disposal of the central bank to conduct monetary policy, before showing why monetary policy execution can...

This paper analyzes the workings and effectiveness of the monetary transmission mechanism in Papua New Guinea. The paper is organized as follows: it describes the current institutional structure in Papua New Guinea; interest rate is discussed; the evidence from vector autoregression analysis on the...

The first section of this paper is an attempt to examine the interest rate channel of monetary policy transmission in Moldova and to estimate the strength and the speed of the interest rate pass-through. The next section provides a background on Moldovan financial markets, liquidity conditions,...

South Africa’s macroeconomic policies face a complicated task of balancing between supporting domestic demand and maintaining stability. The Selected Issues paper for South Africa discusses economic development and policies. Although the opening output gap and declining employment do call...

This 2007 Article IV Consultation highlights that boom in private consumption in Iceland was facilitated by easing household credit conditions, tax cuts, rapidly rising housing and equity wealth, and an appreciating real exchange rate. As a result, the output gap peaked at over 5 percent in...

The staff report for the 2006 Article IV Consultation on Botswana highlights economic developments and monetary and exchange rate policy. Botswana’s growth has been fueled by continued increases in diamond production; and real diamond output is projected to level off, and then decline...

This paper on Romania was prepared by a staff team of the International Monetary Fund as background documentation for the periodic consultation with the member country. It is based on the information available at the time it was completed on September 13, 2012. The views expressed in this...