Putting the pension system on a sustainable footing arguably remains the biggest challenge in Russia''s economic policies. The debate about the policy options was hitherto constrained by the absence of general equilibrium analysis. This paper fills this gap by simulating their macroeconomic...

The paper explores the macroeconomic effects of three public pension reforms, namely an increase in retirement age, a reduction in benefits and an increase in contribution rates. Using a five-region version of the IMF‘s Global Integrated Monetary and Fiscal model (GIMF), we find that public...

We use the IMF''s Global Fiscal Model to evaluate recent proposals to reform social security and the tax system in the United States. Introducing personal retirement accounts is unlikely to yield significant macroeconomic benefits unless it spurs additional fiscal consolidation to prevent a...

Using the U.S. Current Population Survey data, this paper compares the distributional impacts of the Pandemic Crisis and those of the Global Financial Crisis in terms of (i) worker characteristics, (ii) job characteristics-'social' (where individuals interact to consume goods), 'teleworkable'...

This paper looks at the fiscal cost and distributional impact of implicit fuel price subsidies in Gabon, where fuel prices have remained largely unchanged since 2002. Using estimated implicit import parity prices, we evaluate the total fiscal cost of the subsidies at 3.2 percent of non-oil GDP...

Structural conditionality of IMF-supported programs is designed to support structural reforms by countries borrowing from the IMF. Taking stock of program conditions and their implementation, this paper finds that conditionality focuses on fiscal, monetary and financial issues-areas where IMF...

In this paper, we study the macroeconomic impact of pension reform options in Chile, using a dynamic general equilibrium model. The main reform proposal considers raising contributions (employer side) and vehicle additional proceeds to individual accounts and to increase the support of...

This paper reviews macroeconomic aspects of pension reforms in Latin America, focusing on financial market stability and fiscal sustainability. Concentration of pension fund portfolios in government bonds remains high, and the lack of new investment alternatives has distorted asset prices....

Using zip code-level data and nonparametric estimation, I present eight stylized facts on the US housing market in the COVID-19 era. Some aggregate results are: (1) growth rate of median housing price during the four months (April-August 2020) since the Federal Reserve's unprecedented monetary...