Competitiveness | IMF Blog

Competitiveness in Sub-Saharan Africa: Time to Move Ahead

Antoinette Sayeh2

(Versions in Español, Français, and Português)

The sub-Saharan Africa region is facing severe shocks associated with the steep decline in commodity prices and tightening global financial conditions. Against this background, it’s a good time to look back at the region’s recent growth experience and examine the relationship between growth rates and competitiveness. The extent to which sub-Saharan African companies are able to compete against their foreign competitors (that is, the extent to which they are competitive) could indeed play a role in sustaining growth going ahead.

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By IMFBlog| January 28th, 2016|Africa, Economic outlook, growth, International Monetary Fund, trade|

Euro Area: An Unbalanced Rebalancing?

By John Bluedorn and Shengzu Wang

Since the financial crisis, the euro area current account, made up mostly of the trade balances of the individual countries, has moved from rough balance into a clear surplus. But the underlying rebalancing across economies within the euro area has been highly asymmetric, with some debtors, like Greece, Ireland, and Spain, seeing large current account improvements (sometimes into surplus), while creditors, like Germany and the Netherlands, have basically maintained their surpluses (Chart 1). A set of new staff papers look at the drivers of the improvements in debtor current accounts and the persistence of creditor current accounts, and whether these developments are a cause for concern.

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By IMFBlog| July 22nd, 2014|Advanced Economies, Economic Crisis, Employment, Europe, Financial Crisis, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Investment, Reform, Uncategorized|

Euro Area — “Deflation” Versus “Lowflation”

By Reza Moghadam, Ranjit Teja, and Pelin Berkmen

Recent talk about deflation in the euro area has evoked two kinds of reactions. On one side are those who worry about the associated prospect of prolonged recession. On the other are those who see the risk as overblown. This blog and the video below sift through both sides of the debate to argue the following:

Although inflation—headline and core—has fallen and stayed well below the ECB’s 2% price stability mandate, so far there is no sign of classic deflation, i.e., of widespread, self-feeding, price declines.
But even ultra low inflation—let us call it “lowflation”—can be problematic for the euro area as a whole and for financially stressed countries, where it implies higher real debt stocks and real interest rates, less relative price adjustment, and greater unemployment.
Along with Japan’s experience, which saw deflation worm itself into the system, this argues for a more pre-emptive approach by the ECB.

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By IMFBlog| March 4th, 2014|Economic research, Financial Crisis, growth, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Uncategorized|

Turkey: How To Boost Growth Without Increasing Imbalances

by Isabel Rial, Suchanan Tambunlertchai, and Alexander Tieman

(Version in Türk)

Turkey has received well-deserved praise for its growth performance over the last decade. Yet along with this success story has come a steady widening of the current account deficit, projected to come out at 7.4 percent of GDP in 2013. The counterpart of this deficit is a reliance on external financing, much of which is of a short-term nature, highlighting the Turkish economy’s main problem at the moment.

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By IMFBlog| January 13th, 2014|Economic Crisis, Emerging Markets, Europe, Financial Crisis, growth, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Public debt, Uncategorized|

Building on Latin America’s Success

Next week, I will travel to Chile and Colombia—my second visit to the region since November 2011. I return with increased optimism, as much of Latin America continues its impressive transformation that started a decade ago.

By IMFBlog| December 6th, 2012|Economic Crisis, Emerging Markets, Español, Fiscal policy, growth, IMF, Inequality, International Monetary Fund, Latin America, Public debt|

Debt in a Time of Protests

As the world economy continues to struggle, people are taking to the streets by the thousands to protest painful cuts in public spending designed to reduce government debt and deficits. This fiscal fury is understandable. People want to regain the confidence they once had about the future when the economy was booming and more of us had jobs. But after a protracted economic crisis, this will take planning, fair burden-sharing, and time itself.

By IMFBlog| October 16th, 2012|Advanced Economies, Annual Meetings, Asia, Economic Crisis, Emerging Markets, Employment, Europe, Finance, Fiscal policy, growth, IMF, Inequality, International Monetary Fund, Politics, Public debt, recession|

Bridging the Gap: How Official Financing Can Ease the Pain of Adjustment

As I step down from my position as Director of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department, I would like to share some reflections on one of the central issues facing many countries—adjustment under fixed exchange rates. It goes without saying that these reflect a personal and not an institutional view. In the old days, fixed exchange rates were the norm rather than the exception. A body of literature and a wealth of country experience have accumulated on how to adjust under such exchange rate regimes, mostly in emerging economies. The expression “adjustment and financing” came to summarize what economies should do when faced with severe funding constraints brought on by high borrowing costs for government debt in financial markets.

By IMFBlog| August 3rd, 2012|Advanced Economies, Economic Crisis, Economic research, Emerging Markets, Europe, Finance, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Latin America, Politics, Public debt|

Global Financial Stability: What’s Still To Be Done?

The quest for lasting financial stability is still fraught with risks. The latest Global Financial Stability Report has two key messages: policy actions have brought gains to global financial stability since our September report; but current policy efforts are not enough to achieve lasting stability, both in Europe and some other advanced economies, in particular the United States and Japan.

By IMFBlog| April 18th, 2012|Advanced Economies, Economic Crisis, Emerging Markets, Finance, Financial Crisis, Financial regulation, G-20, IMF, International Monetary Fund|

The Logic and Fairness of Greece’s Program

The program deals squarely with the two most fundamental issues facing Greece―not only high debt but also low competitiveness. And it is fair, both in asking for shared sacrifices, not only within Greece, but also between Greece and its creditors.

By IMFBlog| March 19th, 2012|Advanced Economies, Economic Crisis, Economic outlook, Employment, Europe, Financial Crisis, Fiscal policy, growth, IMF, Inequality, International Monetary Fund, Public debt, recession|

Resolve and Determination—How We Get Out of This Together

Coming in to the 2011 Annual Meetings of the IMF and World Bank this past weekend, I had warned of the dangerous new phase for the global economy and had called for bold and collective action. Coming out of the Meetings, I feel strongly that the global community is beginning to respond. Why? Three reasons: a shared sense of urgency, a shared diagnosis of the problems, and a shared sense that the steps needed in the period ahead are now coming into focus. So, looking ahead, follow through—by all concerned—is now even more important. That means taking action not in the years ahead, but in the weeks ahead. And, in that, we are all in this together and we can only get out of it together.

By IMFBlog| September 27th, 2011|Advanced Economies, Annual Meetings, Economic outlook, Emerging Markets, growth, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Low-income countries, Multilateral Cooperation|

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