This paper analyzes competitiveness in the Baltics in the run-up to European Union accession. Several factors appear to have driven movements in equilibrium real exchange rates in the Baltics since the start of the transition process. In the earlier years of transition, price liberalization,...

Conceptual ambiguities and statistical weaknesses hamper the assessment of external competitiveness. The term competitiveness, while applied extensively, is often imprecisely defined, which can result in analytical errors and mistaken policy advice. Furthermore, aggregate statistical measures of...

When the exchange rate fluctuates and the market exhibits hysteresis, planning horizons of domestic and foreign competitors will matter in determining pass-through as well as relative market shares of these firms. Using the Cournot duopoly model, it is shown that if the foreign exporter is a...

Of the new members entering the European Union (EU) in May 2004, several had achieved a decade of impressive export growth, expanding significantly their shares of world markets. The empirical analysis shows that over the period 1994–2004, quality and technology upgrading associated with the...

The dominant role of remittances in Comoros’s economy presents policymakers with important challenges and opportunities. Fiscal decentralization is a pillar of national reconciliation in Comoros. To make decentralization work better, more revenue and expenditure responsibilities could be...

This Selected Issues paper provides a preliminary view on Afghanistan’s external competitiveness through a review of some macroeconomic, microeconomic, and institutional indicators. It discusses the rebuilding of domestic revenue, and analyzes the macroeconomic impact of the drug economy and...

This paper attempts to assess the impact of the oil shock on South Asian economies, including Sri Lanka, as well as policy responses to deal with the shock, and the real income loss for low-income households if fuel subsidies were fully removed. The most important impact has been on the balance...

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

This Selected Issues paper explores the economic consequences of aging and its impact on long-term fiscal sustainability for Cyprus. The study analyzes the potential macroeconomic impact of different approaches to deal with the fiscal costs of aging. It goes beyond a simple quantification of the...

This Selected Issues paper on Sri Lanka underlies the dynamics of growth and external competitiveness. The slowdown in the contribution of sectors that are labor intensive, together with faster growth in sectors that are capital intensive and have higher productivity levels, resulted in total...