Algeria’s Financial System Stability Assessment highlights the Observance of Standards and Codes on monetary and financial policy transparency and banking supervision. Financial intermediation in Algeria will be bank-based in the future, and only politically difficult decisions to...

This Selected Issues paper on Kenya reviews Kenya’s external stability in a context where the exchange rate has strengthened and capital inflows are playing an increasingly important role. Kenya’s external current account deficit has widened, reflecting strong import volumes as...

This paper discusses Germany’s challenges and measures to strengthen crisis management arrangements. Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht (BaFin) and the Bundesbank have closely coordinated with the interagency risk committee on banking matters, which also encompasses BaFin...

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...

Panama’s extensive trade and financial linkages make it vulnerable to adverse external shocks, and this would have a sizable impact on Panama’s real activity. In the absence of monetary policy, macroprudential policy tools could usefully complement microprudential tools. A...

This Selected Issues paper for the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is examined. Real GDP growth accelerated to 5 percent in 2007 and 6 percent in the first half of 2008, from its historical average of about 3 percent. Increased investment, partly financed by FDI, is the main driver...

Tunisia’s reliance on European countries for export earnings, tourism, remittances, and foreign direct investment inflows has remained high over the last decades. Remittances and tourism receipts have been broadly stable in percent of GDP, with somewhat more fluctuations in the latter...

This Selected Issues Paper quantifies the variability of tax elasticities in Lithuania using two alternative methods: rolling regressions and pooled mean group estimator. The analysis is motivated by the systematic variation of tax revenues observed over the economic cycle. Both methods confirm...

This Selected Issues paper is a wide-ranging survey of the conditions for, and obstacles to, the growth in Mexico. It frames the issue of Mexico’s growth record, and presents the paper’s prior assumptions and approach. It highlights the main observations and conclusions emerging...