This paper finds empirical evidence that faster and smarter containment measures were associated with lower fiscal responses to the COVID-19 shock. We also find that initial conditions, such as fiscal space, income, health preparedness and budget transparency were important in shaping the amount...

Following the Great Lockdown in 2020, it is important to take stock of lessons learned. How effective have different containment measures been in slowing the spread of Covid-19? Have containment measures been costly in terms of economic growth, fiscal balances, and accumulated debt? This paper...

The Great Recession underlined that policies in some countries can have profound spillovers elsewhere. Sadly, the solution of simulating large macroeconomic models to measure these spillovers has been found wanting. Typical models generate lower international correlations of output and financial...

Liberia is facing large infrastructure gaps and developmental needs that constrain the country's growth potential. The government has set an ambitious agenda to transform the economy and to reach middle-income country status by 2030 by scaling up investment in infrastructure and human capital....

This paper describes issues in Korea's corporate sector, the need for restructuring, and the authorities' initiatives and challenges. It then identifies lessons from other countries' experience and conducts an econometric analysis based on cross-country aggregate data,compared with previous...

This paper presents estimates of potential output for all Central American economies. Our findings are that potential output growth has declined in recent years in most economies of Central America. Lower capital accumulation and TFP growth are accounting for most of this decline. Apart from...

This paper provides a quantitative evaluation of the macroeconomic, distributional, and fiscal effects of three reform proposals for Germany: i) a reduction in the social security tax in the low-wage sector, ii) a publicly financed expansion of full-day child care and full-day schooling, and...

Using a multivariate filter, we estimate potential growth rates in Chile's mining and non-mining sectors. Estimates for the mining sector incorporate information on copper prices, whereas estimates for non-mining reflect information on inflation and unemployment rates. To better understand the...

The gap between potential and actual output — the output gap — is a key variable for policymaking. This paper adapts the methodology developed in Blagrave and others (2015) to estimate the path of output gap in the U.S. economy. The results show that the output gap has considerably shrunk...

Estimates of potential output are an important component of a structured forecasting and policy analysis system. Using information on consensus forecasts, this paper extends the multivariate filter developed by Laxton and Tetlow (1992) and modified by Benes and others (2010) and Blagrave and...