Real GDP growth slowed somewhat to 5.3 percent in 2009, its slowest pace since 2000, though Vietnam was among the better performers in developing Asia. An immediate challenge is to consolidate the current stable macroeconomic conditions through prudent policies and better communications. Over...

Mounting funding pressures has tipped Portugal into an acute economic crisis in 2011. The roots of the crisis could be traced to Portugal’s failure to adapt to the rigors of monetary union. With economic institutions, policies, and incentives ill-adapted to the opportunities,...

This 2005 Article IV Consultation highlights that economic growth in Morocco has been volatile and insufficient to significantly reduce poverty and unemployment. Growth averaged 3 percent over the last decade. It has been volatile because of the dependency of agriculture on rainfalls. In 2004,...

This Report on the Interim IMF Staff Visit to Lebanon provides information on economic and policy developments since the Article IV discussions of February–March 2004. It updates the IMF staff’s projections, medium-term framework, and related Debt Sustainability Analysis. All...

Serbia’s Second Review under the Stand-By Arrangement and requests for Waiver of Performance Criterion are examined. The contraction in GDP has been limited relative to regional comparators, but absorption and external trade have fallen faster than expected. Foreign parent banks have rolled...

Kosovo’s economic performance has strengthened considerably, but structural deficiencies undermine export sector development and prospects for sustainable growth. The program seeks to restore fiscal sustainability and safeguard financial sector stability. Restoring fiscal sustainability...

The main purpose of this study is to examine the determinants of the corporate choice between different forms of debt financing. By analyzing the most comprehensive sample of U.S. corporate debt issues to date, I find that firms that issue 144A debt have significantly lower credit quality and...

In this paper, we reconsider Minsky's financial instability hypothesis from the point of view of mathematical macrodynamic modeling. We start from a simple prototype small scale model of private debt and income with fixed prices. This system is similar to the Lotka-Volterra predator-prey system,...