Following the 15-year civil war that started in 1975, Lebanon's government began the difficult task of economic stabilization and confidence building, on the one hand, and postwar reconstruction and development, on the other. The government led the reconstruction effort by formulating programs...

Economic interdependence offers the potential for raising global welfare, but there is a fuzzy boundary between national interests and global objectives in the economic policy area. This paper examines the boundary area. It concludes that all international economic regimes must entail a mix of...

This issue of the Regional Economic Outlook for Europe examines the moderate and uneven recovery occurring across the region. The varying speed of recovery in advanced Europe is closely linked to the degree of overheating and credit expansion going into the crisis. The even more varied speed of...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The oversight framework of the European Central Bank (ECB) is comprehensive. The ECB has developed a wide-ranging oversight policy, including quantitative and qualitative criteria to identify, monitor, and remedy any potential systemic risks related to financial market...

It has been shown that under perfect competition and a Cobb-Douglas production function, a basic real business cycle model may exhibit indeterminacy and sunspot fluctuations when income tax rates are determined by a balanced-budget rule. This paper introduces in an otherwise standard real...

From Fragmentation to Financial Integration in Europe is a comprehensive study of the European Union financial system. It provides an overview of the issues central to securing a safer financial system for the European Union and looks at the responses to the global financial crisis, both at the...

The aim of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of risk sharing mechanisms in the euro area and whether a supranational fiscal risk sharing mechanism could insure countries against very severe downturns. Using an unbalanced panel of 15 euro area countries over the period 1979-2010, the...

This is on a highly topical issue and addresses a key policy issue for Europe—namely, reinforcing EMU institutional architecture along with the Banking Union. Some proposals have emerged in Europe, and it will be important to put out staff views on this issue. In that context, publication as...

In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries. Each report, prepared by a staff team after discussions with government officials, is published at the option of the member country