This paper analyzes the scope for systematic rules-based fiscal activism in open economies. Relative to a balanced budget rule, automatic stabilizers significantly improve welfare. But they minimize fiscal instrument volatility rather than business cycle volatility. A more aggressively...

We derive forecast confidence bands using a Global Projection Model covering the United States, the euro area, and Japan. In the model, the price of oil is a stochastic process, interest rates have a zero floor, and bank lending tightening affects the United States. To calculate confidence...

The effectiveness of recent fiscal stimulus packages significantly depends on the assumption of non-Ricardian savings behavior. We show that, under the same assumption, fiscal deficits can have worrisome implications if they turn out to be permanent. First, if they occur in large countries they...

This paper lays out a structural model that incorporates key features of monetary transmission in typical emerging-market economies, including a bank-credit channel and the role of external debt accumulation on country risk premia and exchange rate dynamics. We use an SVAR representation of the...

Intro -- Contents -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. MONETARY POLICY ANALYSIS AT THE IMF -- III. MACROECONOMIC MODELING -- IV. BUILDING THE MODEL -- V. FORECASTING AND POLICY ANALYSIS46 -- VI. AN EXAMPLE -- VII. CAVEATS AND FUTURE WORK -- VIII. CONCLUSIONS -- REFERENCES.

Researchers in policymaking institutions have expended significant effort to develop a new generation of macro models with more rigorous microfoundations. This paper provides a summary of the applications of two of these models. The Global Economy Model is a quarterly model that features a large...

This paper extends a small linear model of the Israeli economy to allow for nonlinearities in the inflation-output process that arise from convexity in the Phillips curve and endogenous monetary policy credibility. We find that the dynamic responses to shocks in the extended model more closely...

Over the past two years, the IMF staff has been developing a new multicountry macroeconomic model called the Global Economy Model (GEM). This paper explains why such a model is needed, how GEM differs from its predecessor model, and how the new features of the model can improve the IMF’s...