This Time Is Different

This Time Is Different
Author: Carmen M. Reinhart
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2011-08-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691152640

An empirical investigation of financial crises during the last 800 years.

IMF Research Bulletin June 2013

IMF Research Bulletin June 2013
Author: Mr.Ayhan Kose
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 14
Release: 2013-06-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484322592

The June issue of the IMF Research Bulletin looks at the role of IMF programs and capacity building in fostering structural reforms and the economics of Arab countries undergoing political transitions. The Q&A analyzes the neutral interest rate through the experiences of several Latin American countries. The Research Bulletin also includes its regular features: a listing of IMF Working Papers and Staff Discussion Notes, information on the forthcoming IMF Economic Review and the Fourteenth Jacques Polack Annual Research Conference, and recommended readings from IMF Publications.

Redistribution, Inequality, and Growth

Redistribution, Inequality, and Growth
Author: Mr.Jonathan David Ostry
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 30
Release: 2014-02-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484397657

The Fund has recognized in recent years that one cannot separate issues of economic growth and stability on one hand and equality on the other. Indeed, there is a strong case for considering inequality and an inability to sustain economic growth as two sides of the same coin. Central to the Fund’s mandate is providing advice that will enable members’ economies to grow on a sustained basis. But the Fund has rightly been cautious about recommending the use of redistributive policies given that such policies may themselves undercut economic efficiency and the prospects for sustained growth (the so-called “leaky bucket” hypothesis written about by the famous Yale economist Arthur Okun in the 1970s). This SDN follows up the previous SDN on inequality and growth by focusing on the role of redistribution. It finds that, from the perspective of the best available macroeconomic data, there is not a lot of evidence that redistribution has in fact undercut economic growth (except in extreme cases). One should be careful not to assume therefore—as Okun and others have—that there is a big tradeoff between redistribution and growth. The best available macroeconomic data do not support such a conclusion.

Household Leverage and the Recession

Household Leverage and the Recession
Author: Callum Jones
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 51
Release: 2018-08-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484374983

We evaluate and partially challenge the ‘household leverage’ view of the Great Recession. In the data, employment and consumption declined more in states where household debt declined more. We study a model where liquidity constraints amplify the response of consumption and employment to changes in debt. We estimate the model with Bayesian methods combining state and aggregate data. Changes in household credit limits explain 40 percent of the differential rise and fall of employment across states, but a small fraction of the aggregate employment decline in 2008-2010. Nevertheless, since household deleveraging was gradual, credit shocks greatly slowed the recovery.

IMF Research Bulletin, June 2011

IMF Research Bulletin, June 2011
Author: International Monetary Fund. Research Dept.
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 12
Release: 2011-06-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1463902913

June 2011: The Q&A in this issue features seven questions on the global trade collapse of 2008-09 (by Rudolfs Bems); the research summaries are "The Impact of the Great Recession on Emerging Markets" (by Ricardo Llaudes, Ferhan Salman, and Mali Chivakul) and "The Missing Link between Dutch Disease, Appreciation, and Growth (by Nicolás E. Magud and Sebastián Sosa). The issue also lists the contents of the June 2011 issue of the IMF Economic Review, Volume 59 Number 2; visiting scholars at the IMF during April-June 2011; and recent IMF Working Papers and Staff Discussion Notes.

The Global Informal Workforce

The Global Informal Workforce
Author: International Monetary Fund
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 414
Release: 2021-07-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1513575910

The Global Informal Workforce is a fresh look at the informal economy around the world and its impact on the macroeconomy. The book covers interactions between the informal economy, labor and product markets, gender equality, fiscal institutions and outcomes, social protection, and financial inclusion. Informality is a widespread and persistent phenomenon that affects how fast economies can grow, develop, and provide decent economic opportunities for their populations. The COVID-19 pandemic has helped to uncover the vulnerabilities of the informal workforce.

Trade Integration and Business Cycle Synchronization

Trade Integration and Business Cycle Synchronization
Author: Mr.Romain A Duval
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 46
Release: 2014-04-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1475523599

This paper reexamines the relationship between trade integration and business cycle synchronization (BCS) using new value-added trade data for 63 advanced and emerging economies during 1995–2012. In a panel framework, we identify a strong positive impact of trade intensity on BCS—conditional on various controls, global common shocks and country-pair heterogeneity—that is absent when gross trade data are used. That effect is bigger in crisis times, pointing to trade as an important crisis propagation mechanism. Bilateral intra-industry trade and trade specialization correlation also appear to increase co-movement, indicating that not only the intensity but also the type of trade matters. Finally, we show that dependence on Chinese final demand in value-added terms amplifies the international spillovers and synchronizing impact of growth shocks in China.

World Trade in Services

World Trade in Services
Author: Mr.Prakash Loungani
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2017-03-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1475589883

Using a newly constructed dataset on trade in services for 192 countries from 1970 to 2014, this paper shows that services currently constitute one-fourth of world trade and an increasingly important component of global production. A detailed analysis of patterns and stylized facts reveals that exports of services are not only gaining strong momentum and catching up with exports of goods in many countries, but they could also trigger a new wave of trade globalization. Research applications of the trade in service dataset on structural transformation, resilience, labor reallocation, and income distribution are outlined.

Income Polarization in the United States

Income Polarization in the United States
Author: Ali Alichi
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2016-06-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1475522568

The paper uses a combination of micro-level datasets to document the rise of income polarization—what some have referred to as the “hollowing out” of the income distribution—in the United States, since the 1970s. While in the initial decades more middle-income households moved up, rather than down, the income ladder, since the turn of the current century, most of polarization has been towards lower incomes. This result is striking and in contrast with findings of other recent contributions. In addition, the paper finds evidence that, after conditioning on income and household characteristics, the marginal propensity to consume from permanent changes in income has somewhat fallen in recent years. We assess the potential impacts of these trends on private consumption. During 1998-2013, the rise in income polarization and lower marginal propensity to consume have suppressed the level of real consumption at the aggregate level, by about 31⁄2 percent—equivalent to more than one year of consumption.