In the extensive empirical work carried out across the IMF on oil-producing sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, the notion of ""sustainability"" is often directed toward fiscal policies, and, in particular, views on the ""optimal"" non-oil primary fiscal deficit. The bulk of this work does not,...

The Great Recession affected export and import patterns in our sample countries, and these changes, coupled with a more volatile external environment, have profound impact on our estimates of real exchange rate misalignments and projections of sustainable real exchange rates. We find that real...

We identify structural breaks in economic growth in 140 countries and use these to define ""growth spells:"" periods of high growth preceded by an upbreak and ending either with a downbreak or with the end of the sample. Growth spells tend to be shorter in African and Latin American countries...

In this paper, we consider the design of the surveillance, and, in particular, the fiscal criteria in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) with the view to ensuring they are consistent with internal and external sustainability. This consistency is important within a...

This Occasional Paper discusses the policies behind the favorable economic performance of the Philippines during the 1990s, when it emerged from a long period of slow growth and economic imbalances and managed to escape the ""Asian crisis"" relatively unscathed. The Philippines' recent...

With the steady increase of crude oil production and the surge in oil prices in the mid- and late 1970s, Oman embarked upon an economic development path that transformed it into a prosperous country. Today Oman boasts impressive physical infrastructure, much improved socioeconomic conditions,...

Economic developments in Hungary during 1995-97 illustrate one of the most remarkable cases of macroeconomic adjustment in Europe over the last decade. Several momentous steps in the integration of the Hungarian economy with the rest of Europe and the industrial countries community took place....

A favorable external environment coupled with prudent policies fostered output growth in most of Latin America during the last decade. But, what were the drivers of this strong growth performance from the supply side and will this momentum be sustainable in the years ahead? We address these...

Libya is highly dependent on exhaustible and volatile hydrocarbon resources, which constitute the bulk of government revenues. Although resource wealth provides the means to promote socio-economic development, procyclical fiscal policies threaten macroeconomic stability as well as fiscal...

This paper assesses the usefulness of summary measures of fiscal sustainability for the purpose of multilateral surveillance. An overview of the main conceptual issues is first presented. Next, an assessment is made of the strengths and weaknesses of the summary measures in the context of their...