This paper examines the linkages between key macroeconomic statistics: external debt, balance of payments, government finance, and monetary statistics, which enable analysts and policy makers to monitor economic developments. The paper reviews statistical compilation issues and concludes that,...

This paper evaluates progress made under ESAF-supported programs in attaining external viability, restoring economic growth, and implementing structural reforms. Performance is evaluated for 19 countries that entered ESAF arrangements by mid-1992, against the background of their initial...

How can international monetary stability be promoted? This study looks at ways to bolster economic policies and coordination among the industrial countries serving as nominal anchors for the world economy. It also assesses the operation of monetary unions and common currency areas. The authors...

This paper examines the effects of three "shocks" - the disintegration of the U.S.S.R., domestic economic reform, and changing relations with other countries- on Russia's balance of payments position. The importance of consistent economic reform and a liberal trade regime is stressed, together...

This study indentifies some of the taxation problems most frequently encountered by Fund member countries in sub-Saharan Africa and seeks solutions that may be useful to either the region as a whole or to groups of countries in the region.

One of the principal aims of the effort to integrate the economies of the 16 member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is to expand intra-Community trade. This objective is to be achieved partly through the elimination of quantitive and other restrictions on trade.

Privatization has been a key element of structural reform in many developing and transition economies during the last decade. This paper examines the fiscal and macroeconomic issues involved in the privatization of nonfinancial public enterprises in these economies. It considers issues such as...

During the last 25 years, monetary practice in most countries has increasingly been characterized by the attempt to achieve credibility of purpose while expanding the freedom of monetary authorities in controlling policy instruments. Thus, the world has moved toward monetary frameworks in which,...