World Econonomic and Financial Surveys, 1988
World Econonomic and Financial Surveys, 1988

Author: International Monetary Fund

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 1988-01-01

Total Pages: 116

ISBN-13: 1451943679

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This paper examines the World Economic Outlook forecasting record for the principal performance indicators for the major industrial countries and corresponding aggregates and for groups of non-oil developing countries. Several criteria were used in evaluating the forecasts: the computation and evaluation of various summary statistics of forecast accuracy, bias, and efficiency; comparisons with alternative forecasts—naive forecasts and forecasts produced by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and by national forecasting agencies; the examination of turning-point errors and forecast performance in defined episodes; and, finally, some attempt to explain forecast error in terms of unanticipated developments in policy variables and oil prices. In judging the forecast performance of the World Economic Outlook, a number of points must be kept in mind. Most important, it has to be recognized that the period since the inception of the World Economic Outlook as a regular forecasting exercise has been extraordinarily rich in economic upheavals, which have made the odds against accurate forecasting formidable.

World Economic and Financial Surveys
World Economic and Financial Surveys

Author: International Monetary Fund

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 1992-01-01

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13: 1451941978

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This paper presents the IMF’s annual survey of developments, prospects, and key policy issues in international capital markets. It focuses on how to manage the restructuring of capital markets in an environment of wide-ranging liberalization, intense competition, and growing securitization—in a way that avoids a systemic crisis as well as moral hazard risks and budgetary costs associated with public sector support of weak financial institutions. A key feature of the new financial environment is the competition-driven disintermediation from banking systems—particularly from wholesale banking—into securitized money and capital markets. The more creditworthy corporate borrowers in major industrial countries are increasingly able to satisfy their liquidity, risk-management, and financing needs directly in liquid securities markets. Securitization is forcing adjustments across the entire spectrum of activities and institutions in financial markets. The loss of traditional balance sheet business has led to cost cutting and to consolidation in the wholesale banking sector and to an expansion in off-balance sheet activities, including backup lines of credit and forward interest rate and foreign exchange contracts.

1993 World Economic and Financial Surveys
1993 World Economic and Financial Surveys

Author: International Monetary Fund

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 1993-01-01

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 145193890X

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This paper discusses systematic issues in international finance explained in the International Capital Markets report. The paper describes that the nature and extent of recent banking problems in several industrial countries along with the policy responses to those problems. It is observed that balance sheet problems in banking are widespread among the major industrial countries. The paper also analyses recent activity in the European currency unit bond and exchange markets, and reviews developments in the private financing of developing countries and discusses several issues raised by the recent experience, including the broadening of the investor base for developing country securities, the special role played by regional financial centers in East and Southeast Asia, and the systemic implications of the evolving pattern of developing country financing. A key influence on international capital movements in recent years was the rising international diversification of investment portfolios, which is generally believed to have increased in response to the liberalization of exchange and capital controls in many industrial countries in the 1970s and 1980s.

1989 World Economic and Financial Surveys
1989 World Economic and Financial Surveys

Author: International Monetary Fund

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 1989-01-01

Total Pages: 72

ISBN-13: 1451940432

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This paper summarizes major measures taken in the international exchange and trade systems in 1988 and developments in exchange arrangements and the evolution of exchange rates. The exchange arrangements adopted by members since 1973 cover a broad spectrum of degrees of flexibility, from single-currency pegs to a freely floating system. Most countries have adopted arrangements that fall clearly into one or another of the major categories of the present classification system adopted by the IMF in 1982, and countries with dual markets usually have one market that is clearly more important than the other, which allows accurate classification by major market. Changes in IMF members' arrangements for their currencies during this decade have shown a distinct tendency to move toward more flexible arrangements and away from single-currency pegs, continuing a trend that began in the mid-1970s. A qualitative sense of the significance of the trend toward more flexible arrangements can be conveyed by the degree that world trade is affected by countries adopting different arrangements.

1992 World Economic and Financial Surveys
1992 World Economic and Financial Surveys

Author: International Monetary Fund

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 1992-01-01

Total Pages: 90

ISBN-13: 145194005X

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This paper reviews recent developments in private market financing for developing countries. Bank creditors themselves have been more amenable to restructuring in an environment where secondary market discounts on bank claims were falling significantly below the level of bank provisioning. This has allowed banks to realize substantial book profits by participating in debt operations. Debt conversions have also played a substantial role in reducing commercial bank debt. The pace of such conversions, however, has slowed over the past year in response to lower secondary market discounts on external debt and to a drop in privatization-related conversions. The re-entry to international capital markets by certain middle-income countries that had experienced debt-servicing difficulties gathered momentum over the past year. Total bond issues in international markets by the main re-entrants accounted for over half of issues by developing countries in this period. In contrast to the experience in securities markets, new bank lending to market re-entrants has remained limited and is confined mainly to short-term trade lines or project financing.

World Economic and Financial Surveys, Primary Commoditie, 1989
World Economic and Financial Surveys, Primary Commoditie, 1989

Author: International Monetary Fund

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 1989-01-01

Total Pages: 116

ISBN-13: 1451943105

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This paper provides an analysis of the market developments in 1988 with respect to primary commodities and the outlook for these commodities in the near and medium term. Attention is focused on the major nonfuel primary commodities traded in international markets. Movements in the overall price index and in price indices for the major groups of commodities have been mirrored by an inverse movement in stocks of commodities. Beginning-of-year stocks of all nonfuel commodities—measured in terms of months of consumption—increased during the first half of the 1980s and peaked in 1986. Movements in primary commodity prices convey important information in several ways: they signal changes in the major source of export earnings for most developing countries; they indicate changes in a significant component of the cost of producing many manufactured goods; and they may be a helpful leading indicator of changes in inflation in industrial countries. The negotiating groups established for the Uruguay Round met on a number of occasions throughout the year to discuss a wide range of issues.

World Economic Outlook, April 2016
World Economic Outlook, April 2016

Author: International Monetary Fund. Research Dept.

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2016-04-12

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 1498398588

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Major macroeconomic realignments are affecting prospects differentially across the world’s countries and regions. The April 2016 WEO examines the causes and implications of these realignments—including the slowdown and rebalancing in China, a further decline in commodity prices, a related slowdown in investment and trade, and declining capital flows to emerging market and developing economies—which are generating substantial uncertainty and affecting the outlook for the global economy. Additionally, analytical chapters examine the slowdown in capital flows to emerging market economies since their 2010 peak—its main characteristics, how it compares with past slowdowns, the factors that are driving it, and whether exchange rate flexibility has changed the dynamics of the capital inflow cycle—and assess whether product and labor market reforms can improve the economic outlook in advanced economies, looking at the recent evolution and scope for further reform, the channels through which reforms affect economic activity under strong versus weak economic conditions, reforms’ short- to medium-term macroeconomic effects, and sequencing of reforms and coordination with other policies to maximize their potential quantitative economic benefits. A special feature analyzes in depth the energy transition in an era of low fossil fuel prices.

The Global Findex Database 2017
The Global Findex Database 2017

Author: Asli Demirguc-Kunt

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2018-04-19

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 1464812683

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In 2011 the World Bank—with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—launched the Global Findex database, the world's most comprehensive data set on how adults save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. Drawing on survey data collected in collaboration with Gallup, Inc., the Global Findex database covers more than 140 economies around the world. The initial survey round was followed by a second one in 2014 and by a third in 2017. Compiled using nationally representative surveys of more than 150,000 adults age 15 and above in over 140 economies, The Global Findex Database 2017: Measuring Financial Inclusion and the Fintech Revolution includes updated indicators on access to and use of formal and informal financial services. It has additional data on the use of financial technology (or fintech), including the use of mobile phones and the Internet to conduct financial transactions. The data reveal opportunities to expand access to financial services among people who do not have an account—the unbanked—as well as to promote greater use of digital financial services among those who do have an account. The Global Findex database has become a mainstay of global efforts to promote financial inclusion. In addition to being widely cited by scholars and development practitioners, Global Findex data are used to track progress toward the World Bank goal of Universal Financial Access by 2020 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The database, the full text of the report, and the underlying country-level data for all figures—along with the questionnaire, the survey methodology, and other relevant materials—are available at www.worldbank.org/globalfindex.

World Economic Outlook, October 2013
World Economic Outlook, October 2013

Author: International Monetary Fund. Research Dept.

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2013-10-08

Total Pages: 657

ISBN-13: 1484348834

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Global growth is in low gear, and the drivers of activity are changing. These dynamics raise new policy challenges. Advanced economies are growing again but must continue financial sector repair, pursue fiscal consolidation, and spur job growth. Emerging market economies face the dual challenges of slowing growth and tighter global financial conditions. This issue of the World Economic Outlook examines the potential spillovers from these transitions and the appropriate policy responses. Chapter 3 explores how output comovements are influenced by policy and financial shocks, growth surprises, and other linkages. Chapter 4 assesses why certain emerging market economies were able to avoid the classical boom-and-bust cycle in the face of volatile capital flows during the global financial crisis.

World Econonomic and Financial Surveys, 1987
World Econonomic and Financial Surveys, 1987

Author: International Monetary Fund

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 1987-01-01

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 1451941765

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This paper provides an assessment of trends in the international capital markets, including most notably recent market shocks to the financial system and developments in the debt situation. It also reviews the scope of progress achieved over the last few years in strengthening the financial system. Given the extensive changes that have taken place in domestic and international financial markets, the authorities in all industrial countries have begun to adapt their supervisory and regulatory framework to reflect better the new financial environment. These efforts acquired added importance with the recent financial market shocks. The outlook for lending to developing countries that have experienced payments difficulties has deteriorated during the past year. For most of these countries, the prospect for a resumption of spontaneous general purpose bank lending appears very limited. In gauging the vulnerability of the financial system, it should be borne in mind that adverse economic circumstances affecting sovereign loans could have a simultaneous, negative impact on domestic credit quality. In some countries, bank exposures to energy, agriculture, real estate, shipping, and elements of heavy industry remain problematic.