This 2009 Article IV Consultation highlights that Belarus has so far escaped a significant fall in output, despite a sharp fall in external demand. GDP declined 0.5 percent year over year in the first eight months of 2009, comparing favorably to Belarus’ main trading partners. Economic...

This 2009 Article IV Consultation highlights that the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s vulnerability at the outset of the global crisis was its large current account deficit in the context of the exchange rate peg to the euro. At the same time, it benefited from a small fiscal...

This Selected Issues paper estimates both Guatemala’s potential output and output gap using a wide range of econometric techniques. The analysis suggests that Guatemala’s potential output growth is about 3.5 percent for the whole sample period and that the output gap is almost...

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 Article IV Consultation reports that macroeconomic developments in Guatemala have been broadly positive since 2010. Although the external current account deficit widened in 2011, the surplus in the capital account was larger, partly owing to banks’ increased access to foreign credit...