In light of the real appreciation of the Egyptian pound over the last six years and Egypt’s lackluster export growth, questions of external competitiveness and exchange rate policy have arisen. This paper sheds light on these issues by estimating empirically Egypt’s equilibrium real exchange...

The analysis of coincident and leading indicators can help policymakers gauge the short-term direction of economic activity. While such analysis is well established in advanced economies, it has received relatively little attention in many emerging market and developing economies, reflecting in...

This paper builds on the methodology developed by Chudik and Mongardini (2007) to estimate the relationship between grants and remittances and the equilibrium real exchange rate in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries using panel techniques. The results indicate that grants and remittances are...

Currency substitution is now a common issue in the design of monetary policy in most transition economies. This paper analyzes the persistence of this phenomenon in the Kyrgyz Republic by including a ratchet variable in the model specification. The main conclusion of the paper is that, while...

This paper assesses the macroeconomic implications of scaling up aid for Benin in line with the Gleneagles commitment to double aid to poor countries over the next three years to reach $85 per capita by 2010 and keep it at that level thereafter. The analysis suggests that the additional aid...

This paper extends earlier research by adding SWIFT data on documentary collections to the short-term forecast of international trade. While SWIFT documentary collections accounted for just over one percent of world trade financing in 2020, they have strong explanatory power to forecast world...

An essential element of the work of the Fund is to monitor and forecast international trade. This paper uses SWIFT messages on letters of credit, together with crude oil prices and new export orders of manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), to improve the short-term forecast of...

Japan has ambitious economic goals: 3 percent nominal growth; 2 percent inflation; and a primary budget surplus. Abenomics has employed the three arrows of monetary, fiscal and structural policies, but the goals remain out of reach. We propose that countercyclical measures be embedded in...

Global smartphone sales may have peaked. After reaching nearly 1.5 billion units in 2016, global smartphone sales have since declined, contributing negatively to world trade in 2019 and suggesting that the global market may now be saturated. This paper develops a simple model to forecast...