The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and...

This paper investigates empirically the pass-through of money market interest rates to retail banking interest rates in Chile, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and five European countries. Overall, Chile''s pass-through does not appear atypical. Based on a standard...

Why do prices in Spain''s regions fail to converge? The prime suspects for this puzzling result are differences in regional barriers to entry in retail distribution. This paper develops a Cournot-Nash model of imperfect competition to illustrate the effect of barriers on prices. A unique data...

This study constructs an index of human capital for the Spanish labor force over the past two decades and projects it over the next decade on the basis of likely demographic developments. The methodology considers both educational attainment resulting from formal schooling and improvements in...

This paper evaluates the macroeconomic and welfare effects of extending the averaging period used to calculate pension benefits in a pay-as-you-go system. It also examines the complementarities between reforms extending the averaging period and those increasing the retirement age under...

The paper uses the P-STAR model to analyze Spanish prices from 1970 to 1996, adding the foreign price gap to the standard domestic definition of the P-STAR model (the domestic price gap) to assess the role German price movements played in Spanish inflation. The domestic price gap turns out to be...

The general government in Spain is composed of the State (central) government, the social security system, 17 regional governments, and a very large number of municipalities. Over the last several years, motivated in part by a desire to qualify for participation in Stage 3 of monetary union, the...

This paper considers the adjustment of physical capital within a country in the long run and in the short run. It uses a unique data set on income, labor, human capital, and private and public physical capital in the Spanish regions over the past two decades. In the long run, the movement of...

This paper presents the first set of Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) borrowing agreements that have been signed to respond to the unprecedented demand for concessional financing during the COVID-19 pandemic. A fast-track loan mobilization round has been instrumental to allow the Fund...

This collection of studies analyzes developments in nonprice external competitiveness of France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. While France, Italy, and Portugal have experienced substantial export market share losses, Greece and Spain performed relatively well. Export market share losses...