Fiscal profligacy, an erosion of competitiveness, and governance problems have undermined investor confidence and curtailed access to foreign financing in Zimbabwe. The new economic team has taken steps in devaluing the currency and raising the awareness of public opinion about the size of the...

This note outlines a scheme for mobilizing financing to help developing countries confront the challenges posed by climate change. The idea is to create a “Green Fund†with the capacity to raise resources on a scale commensurate with the Copenhagen Accord ($100 billion a year by 2020)....

This paper contributes to the current debate on what role financial stability considerations should play in monetary policy decision and how best to integrate macro-prudential and monetary policy frameworks. The paper broadly supports the view that monetary policy easing induces greater...

This paper explores the private- and public-sector responses to the crisis and some of the probable outcomes. Aside from improved supervision of individual institutions, greater emphasis needs to be put on financial regulations that reflect the systemic nature of financial risks and the role...

Three years after the onset of the global financial crisis, much has been done to reform the global financial system, but there is much left to accomplish. The regulatory reform agenda agreed by G-20 leaders in 2009 has elevated the discussions to the highest policy level and kept international...

Staff Discussion Notes showcase the latest policy-related analysis and research being developed by individual IMF staff and are published to elicit comment and to further debate. These papers are generally brief and written in nontechnical language, and so are aimed at a broad audience...

The proposed SDN documents the evolution of bank size and activities over the past 20 years. It discusses whether this evolution can be explained by economies of scale or “too big to fail†subsidies. The paper then presents evidence on the extent to which bank size and market-based...

Some scholars have argued that direct distribution of natural resource revenues to the population would help resource-rich countries escape the “resource curse.†This discussion note analyzes whether this proposal is a viable policy alternative for resource-rich countries. The first...

This paper argues that Japan’s excessive labor market duality can reduce Total Factor Productivity (TFP) due to a negative impact on non-regular workers’ effort and on firms’ incentives to train them. On the basis of cross-country empirical evidence, the paper proposes some reform options....

CESEE banks are reducing foreign funding sources in response to reduced external imbalances, reduced ability to tap international savings, banking group own strategies, initiatives by some regulators, and consistently with uncertainties surrounding the future of the banking union project. In the...