This paper discusses a request from Congo for the Rapid-Access Component of the Exogenous Shocks Facility. Performance on the 2008 staff-monitored program was mixed, complicated by the effects of the exogenous shock. Although weaknesses remain, the authorities strengthened public financial...

This 2009 Article IV Consultation highlights that the Uruguayan economy has held up considerably well in the face of the global recession. The impact of the crisis appears to have been relatively short lived. Private consumption and investment decelerated while the unemployment rate rose only...

This 2008 Article IV Consultation highlights that rapid domestic demand growth in Ukraine pushed the economy beyond its capacity in 2007–08, leading to accelerating inflation. The demand expansion, fed by fiscal and income policies and a capital-inflow driven surge in money and credit...

The corporate sector in Indonesia has been recovering in recent years from the financial crisis of 1997–98. This paper analyzes the performance of the Indonesian nonfinancial corporate sector in recent years and discusses remaining challenges and vulnerabilities. The decline in corporate...

This paper discusses key findings of the Fourth Review under the Policy Support Instrument (PSI) for the United Republic of Tanzania. By October 2008, inflation had risen to 11.8 percent mainly reflecting the surge in global food and fuel prices, but is expected to begin to recede. Poverty...

This paper proposes a theory to explain why a politician delegates policy tasks to a technocrat in an independent institution. It formalizes the rationales for delegation highlighted by Hamilton (1788) and by Blinder (1998). Delegation trades-off the cost of having a possibly incompetent...

The paper examines the association and corporate behavior for a sample of manufacturing firms in India for the post-reform period 1992-2003. The findings suggest that a contractionary monetary policy lowers overall debt including bank debt, although the lagged response is positive, and listed...

A number of countries are reviewing their institutional arrangements for financial stability to support the development of a macroprudential policy function. In some cases, this involves a rethink of the appropriate institutional boundaries between central banks and financial regulatory...