We identify current challenges for creating stable, yet efficient financial systems using lessons from recent and past crises. Reforms need to start from three tenets: adopting a system-wide perspective explicitly aimed at addressing market failures; understanding and incorporating into...

Asia proved to be remarkably resilient in the face of the global financial crisis, but why was its output performance stronger than that of other regions? The paper shows that better initial conditions—in the form of lower external and financial vulnerabilities—contributed...

In this paper, we analyze how lack of credibility and transparency of monetary and fiscal policies undermines the effectiveness of macroeconomic policies to isolate the economy from commodity price fluctuations. We develop a general equilibrium model for a commodity-exporting economy where macro...

The ongoing demographic changes will bring about a substantial shift in the size and the age composition of the population, which will have significant impact on the global economy. Despite potentially grave consequences, demographic changes usually do not take center stage in many macroeconomic...

The Flexible System of Global Models (FSGM) is a group of models developed by the Economic Modeling Division of the IMF for policy analysis. A typical module of FSGM is a multi-region, forward-looking semi-structural global model consisting of 24 regions. Using the three core modules focused on...

Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden form a tightly integrated region which has strong ties with the euro area as well as some exposure to Russia. Using the IMF’s Global Integrated Monetary and Fiscal model (GIMF), we examine spillovers the region could face, focusing on possible...

The Global Integrated Monetary and Fiscal model (GIMF) is a multi-region, forward-looking, DSGE model developed by the Economic Modeling Division of the IMF for policy analysis and international economic research. Using a 5-region version of the GIMF, this paper illustrates the model’s...

The macroeconomic policy response in India after the North Atlantic financial crisis (NAFC) was rapid. The overshooting of the stimulus and its gradual withdrawal sowed seeds for inflationary and BoP pressures and growth slowdown, then exacerbated by domestic policy bottlenecks and volatility in...

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...

The 2009 Article IV Consultation highlights that the near-term outlook for Belgium is challenging, with real GDP expected to drop by about 3 percent in 2009 and a gradual recovery projected for 2010. The unemployment rate will continue to rise in 2010, and inflation pressures are expected to...