This Selected Issues paper on Panama explores the current situation and trends of the Caja del Seguro Social (CSS) in Panama. The autonomy is embedded in its Organic Law, which also provides the agency with the right to have separate funds from the central government. The slowdown in economic...

This Selected Issues paper attempts to analyze the end-point problem and improve the quality of potential GDP estimates for Germany. It projects that Germany’s potential GDP growth will slow over the coming decade, mainly because of declining labor input. The paper focuses on a long-term...

This Selected Issues paper of the United Kingdom analyzes the official projections of public pension spending and risks, as well as the strategy to increase private pension provision. It provides a comparison of stylized facts regarding business cycle developments in the three economies, and an...

The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) has been developed for eradicating poverty in Armenia. It analyzes the poverty situation of Armenia, and evaluates the methodology and methodological issues. It discusses the PRSP goals, main policy directions, solution to poverty, and the reduction of...

This paper focuses on Senegal’s second poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP–II). It summarizes the results of the participatory PRSP review process prior to final validation and adoption by the government. As an economic and social policy document for growth and poverty reduction...

This Selected Issues paper examines the factors behind the recent surge in capital flows in Japan. The paper presents econometric evidence on the influence of these capital flows on the medium-term dynamics of the yen. It finds that in the case of the yen–dollar rate, nontrade factors...

This Selected Issues Paper carries out an empirical analysis of the effects of policies and external shocks on economic activity in Suriname. The estimates are broadly consistent with prior empirical findings. The results reveal a strong contemporaneous correlation between credit and demand,...

This Selected Issues paper focuses on the medium-term budgetary framework (MTBF) for Austria. Austria is part of a trend among many countries to consider some form of MTBF. This paper describes the proposed framework in Austria and assesses it in light of the experience of other countries. The...