In this paper we present various techniques to estimate Sri Lanka's potential output and output gap, including statistical and model-based approaches. Compared to conventional statistical filters that rely exclusively on information in a single series, the model-based approaches allow potential...

Wide-ranging structural reforms are underway in Italy, aimed at addressing key bottlenecks in the product and labor markets. Our analysis, based on the IMF's Global Integrated Monetary and Fiscal model (GIMF), attempts to quantify the potential gains to the economy from a comprehensive package...

The widespread availability of internet search data is a new source of high-frequency information that can potentially improve the precision of macroeconomic forecasting, especially in areas with data constraints. This paper investigates whether travel-related online search queries enhance...

We use a general-equilibrium model to explain the rise in global trade and payments imbalances since the mid-1990s, and then to construct adjustment paths to a steady state. Assuming that the shocks giving rise to the imbalances do not suddenly reverse, simulated movements in the U.S. trade...

In the last decade, over half of the EU countries in the euro area or with currenciespegged to the euro were hit by large risk premium shocks. Previous papers havefocused on the impact of these shocks on demand. This paper, by contrast, focuses onthe impact on supply. We show that risk premium...

This paper seeks to quantify the net benefits of a comprehensive reform package aimedat addressing Italy's inter-related challenges. Specifically, it simulates the growth andcompetitiveness effects of a package of fiscal, financial, wage bargaining, and otherstructural reforms. Credible...

In the last few decades there has been little convergence of income levels in Latin America with those in the United States, in sharp contrast with both emerging Asia and emerging Europe. This paper argues that lack of convergence was not the result of low investment. Latin America is poorer...

The paper uses a supply-side framework based on a production function approach to assess the role of structural reforms in boosting long-term GDP growth in Argentina. The impact of product, labor, trade, and tax reforms on each supply-side channel-capital accumulation, labor utilization, and...

Minimum trace reconciliation, developed by Wickramasuriya et. al. (2019), is an innovation in the literature of forecast reconciliation. The proof, however, is indirect and not easy to extend to more general situations. This paper provides an alternative proof based on the first-order condition...

Forecasting a macroframework, which consists of many macroeconomic variables and accounting identities, is widely conducted in the policy arena to present an economic narrative and check its consistency. Such forecasting, however, is challenging because forecasters should extend limited...