Brazil under-invested in infrastructure for over three decades, and infrastructure investment rates have come up only slowly since 2007. Infrastructure needs are sizeable in almost all sectors. It is likely that at its current stage of development the country will benefit from large pay-offs...

This paper seeks to identify factors explaining the appreciation of the Brazilian real observed since 2003, which was temporarily interrupted only during episodes of financial turbulence. Net foreign assets and the productivity differential relative to Brazil’s main trade partners are found to...

This paper identifies refinements to the macroeconomic framework that will help Brazil to achieve strong performance in a new environment in which population will age at a rapid pace, heavy reliance on oil resources will increase public revenue volatility and uncertainties regarding the external...

The oil price hike in 2007-08 underlined the vulnerability of Indonesia’s energy subsidy policy to oil price volatility. In addition to entailing significant economic and environmental costs, energy subsidies put pressure on the public budget and benefit mostly rich households. Phasing them...

Micro, small and medium-sized firms (MSMEs) are a key source of employment and economic growth in Indonesia. They contributed to the country’s economic resilience during the 2008-09 financial crisis. But many suffer from low productivity, curbing their role in boosting living standards. There...

This paper considers the role of the automobile industry in the current cycle. It shows that the industry is economically important and its cycle is intertwined with business cycles. After casting some light on the sources of the collapse in car sales at the start of the crisis, the policy...

This paper examines the effect of economic crises on structural unemployment using an Autoregressive Distributed Lags model and accounting for the role of institutional settings. Analysing an unbalanced panel of 30 OECD economies from 1970 to 2008, we found that downturns have, on average, a...

This paper examines the effects of fiscal policy on output in the euro area. For this purpose we develop a DSGE Fiscal Model with endogenous government bond yields to assess the impact of different fiscal policy shocks on output, its components and on government debt. The simulations suggest...

Energy represents a major sustainable-development challenge for Canada. In the short term, labour shortages and infrastructure bottlenecks are likely to hinder energy developments and need to be addressed. In addition, provincial fiscal management could be improved by adopting prudent allocation...

This paper reviews and assesses in terms of availability, reliability and transparency existing policy and outcome indicators that have been found to be linked both directly and indirectly to economic growth and living standards. Indicators aiming at capturing the political and social situation...