Download or read book The Main Determinants of Inflation in Albania written by Ilker Domaç and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1998 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: June 1998 This study of inflation in Albania yields several conclusions: * Fighting inflation and keeping exports competitive requires cuts in the budget deficit and credit to government. * The strong seasonal inflation can be somewhat ameliorated by improving infrastructure and customs services. * Structural reforms and improved infrastructure should be part of all stabilization programs, because growth reduces inflation. Domac and Elbirt investigate the behavior and determinants of inflation in Albania, using three approaches. They * Decompose inflation into four components: seasonal, cyclical, trend, and random. * Rely on the widely used Granger causality test, using disaggregated data on both the consumer price index (CPI) and key economic variables. * Apply cointegration and error-correction techniques to the process of inflation, using a simple theoretical model. Using the first approach, they conclude that inflation exhibits strong seasonal patterns associated with agriculture seasonality. Peaks and troughs of monetary aggregates correspond to those of inflation, with a two-month lag. The exchange rate also exhibits stable seasonality, reaching its trough in August and tending to depreciate early in the year. The Granger causality test shows M1 (currency in circulation plus demand deposits) and the exchange rate to have predictive content for most items of the CPI. The empirical findings also indicate that credit to government is a good predictor of medical care, transportation, and communication prices. But causality also runs from the prices of bread and cereals, recreation, education, and culture to credit to government, since these items, at least during the period under consideration, are subsidized and contribute to the budget deficit. And causality runs from credit to government to the price of nontradables, highlighting the fact that an increase in the fiscal deficit would undermine Albania's competitiveness by producing appreciation in the real exchange rate. The results of cointegration and error-correction techniques confirm that, in the long run, inflation is positively related to both money supply and the exchange rate, and negatively related to real income. A 1-percent increase in M1, for example, will raise inflation by 0.41 percent; a 1-percent depreciation of the exchange rate will increase inflation by 0.17 percent; whereas a 1-percent increase in real income will reduce inflation by 0.25 percent. Inflation adjusts to its equilibrium value fairly rapidly-25 percent a month. The impact of the exchange rate on inflation occurs a month later, while the impact of real income and money take place two and four months later, respectively. The findings support the conventional elements of a typical stabilization program. Fighting inflation and keeping exports competitive requires reducing both the budget deficit and credit to government. The strong seasonal nature of inflation can be somewhat ameliorated by improving infrastructure and customs services. Structural reforms and improvements in infrastructure should be part of any stabilization program because economic growth is an antidote to inflation. This paper-a joint product of the Albania/Croatia Country Unit, Europe and Central Asia Region, and the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit, East Asia and Pacific Region-is part of a larger effort in the Bank to enhance the knowledge on the inflationary process and its practical implications. The authors may be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected].

Download or read book The Main Determinants of Inflation in Albania written by Domaç and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Main Determinants of Inflation in Albania written by Ilker Domac and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of inflation i ...

Download or read book Inflation and Money Demand in Albania written by Mr.Sanja Kalra and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1998-07-01 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The paper uses a simple analytical framework to estimate relationships between prices, money the exchange rate, and interest rates in Albania during 1993–97. The estimated parsimonious error correction model extends the findings of a growing literature on inflation and money demand in transition economies. The results suggest that, after the one-time effects of the 1997 crisis are taken into account, the long-run determinants of inflation and money demand remained unchanged. Strong financial policies since mid—1997 appear to have helped to restore conditions for low inflation and stable money demand.

Download or read book Inflation and Money Demand in Albania written by Sanjay Kalra and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The paper uses a simple analytical framework to estimate relationships between prices, money, the exchange rate, and interest rates in Albania during 1993-97. The estimated parsimonious error correction model extends the findings of a growing literature on inflation and money demand in transition economies. The results suggest that, after the one-time effects of the 1997 crisis are taken into account, the long-run determinants of inflation and money demand remained unchanged. Strong financial policies since mid-1997 appear to have helped to restore conditions for low inflation and stable money demand.

Download or read book Inflation in Emerging and Developing Economies written by Jongrim Ha and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2019-02-24 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first comprehensive study in the context of EMDEs that covers, in one consistent framework, the evolution and global and domestic drivers of inflation, the role of expectations, exchange rate pass-through and policy implications. In addition, the report analyzes inflation and monetary policy related challenges in LICs. The report documents three major findings: In First, EMDE disinflation over the past four decades was to a significant degree a result of favorable external developments, pointing to the risk of rising EMDE inflation if global inflation were to increase. In particular, the decline in EMDE inflation has been supported by broad-based global disinflation amid rapid international trade and financial integration and the disruption caused by the global financial crisis. While domestic factors continue to be the main drivers of short-term movements in EMDE inflation, the role of global factors has risen by one-half between the 1970s and the 2000s. On average, global shocks, especially oil price swings and global demand shocks have accounted for more than one-quarter of domestic inflation variatio--and more in countries with stronger global linkages and greater reliance on commodity imports. In LICs, global food and energy price shocks accounted for another 12 percent of core inflation variatio--half more than in advanced economies and one-fifth more than in non-LIC EMDEs. Second, inflation expectations continue to be less well-anchored in EMDEs than in advanced economies, although a move to inflation targeting and better fiscal frameworks has helped strengthen monetary policy credibility. Lower monetary policy credibility and exchange rate flexibility have also been associated with higher pass-through of exchange rate shocks into domestic inflation in the event of global shocks, which have accounted for half of EMDE exchange rate variation. Third, in part because of poorly anchored inflation expectations, the transmission of global commodity price shocks to domestic LIC inflation (combined with unintended consequences of other government policies) can have material implications for poverty: the global food price spikes in 2010-11 tipped roughly 8 million people into poverty.

Download or read book Albania written by International Monetary Fund. European Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2016-06-09 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper aims to determine how much of the economic slowdown of Albania is owing to cyclical conditions and how much to a reduction in potential growth. The analysis shows that average growth in 2009–14 dropped by 3.2 percentage points relative to 1997–2008, of which 2.8 percentage points are due to lower potential growth. Albania has significant potential to improve its export competitiveness. However, Albania’s competitiveness has shown narrow improvements over the past five years, with weak productivity growth and continued concentration in low-skilled labor-intensive sectors with limited value added. This paper also explores the factors underpinning Albania’s relatively low level of general government revenues.

Download or read book Monetary Policy in Low Inflation Economies written by David E. Altig and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-31 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume investigate the challenges of transitioning to lower levels of inflation and conducting monetary policy in low-inflation economies. The essays make both theoretical and empirical contributions.

Download or read book Islamic Republic of Iran written by International Monetary Fund. Middle East and Central Asia Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Islamic Republic of Iran: Selected Issues

Download or read book Determinants of Transient and Chronic Poverty written by Jyotsna Jalan and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1998 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book International Macroeconomics in the Wake of the Global Financial Crisis written by Laurent Ferrara and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-06-13 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book collects selected articles addressing several currently debated issues in the field of international macroeconomics. They focus on the role of the central banks in the debate on how to come to terms with the long-term decline in productivity growth, insufficient aggregate demand, high economic uncertainty and growing inequalities following the global financial crisis. Central banks are of considerable importance in this debate since understanding the sluggishness of the recovery process as well as its implications for the natural interest rate are key to assessing output gaps and the monetary policy stance. The authors argue that a more dynamic domestic and external aggregate demand helps to raise the inflation rate, easing the constraint deriving from the zero lower bound and allowing monetary policy to depart from its current ultra-accommodative position. Beyond macroeconomic factors, the book also discusses a supportive financial environment as a precondition for the rebound of global economic activity, stressing that understanding capital flows is a prerequisite for economic-policy decisions.

Download or read book Are Labor Markets in Developing Countries Dualistic written by William Francis Maloney and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1998 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Distributional Implications of the Impact of Fuel Price Increases on Inflation written by Mr. Kangni R Kpodar and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2021-11-12 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper investigates the response of consumer price inflation to changes in domestic fuel prices, looking at the different categories of the overall consumer price index (CPI). We then combine household survey data with the CPI components to construct a CPI index for the poorest and richest income quintiles with the view to assess the distributional impact of the pass-through. To undertake this analysis, the paper provides an update to the Global Monthly Retail Fuel Price Database, expanding the product coverage to premium and regular fuels, the time dimension to December 2020, and the sample to 190 countries. Three key findings stand out. First, the response of inflation to gasoline price shocks is smaller, but more persistent and broad-based in developing economies than in advanced economies. Second, we show that past studies using crude oil prices instead of retail fuel prices to estimate the pass-through to inflation significantly underestimate it. Third, while the purchasing power of all households declines as fuel prices increase, the distributional impact is progressive. But the progressivity phases out within 6 months after the shock in advanced economies, whereas it persists beyond a year in developing countries.

Download or read book Exports Inflation and Growth written by Thorvaldur Gylfason and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1997-09-01 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper identifies some of the main determinants of exports and economic growth in cross-sectional data from the World Bank, covering 160 countries in the period 1985-1994. First, the linkages between the propensity to export and population, per capita income, agriculture, primary exports, and inflation are studied by statistical methods. Then, the relationship between economic growth and some of the above-mentioned determinants of exports and investment are scrutinized the same way. The main conclusion is that, in the period under review, high inflation and an abundance of natural resources tended to be associated with low exports and slow growth.

Download or read book Estonia the Challenge of Financial Integration written by Carlos Brandão Cavalcanti and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1998 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: July 1998 To gain recognition from its counterparts in the European Union, Estonia must give priority to improving risk management in its banks and improving institutional capacity for bank regulation and supervision. The most important challenge of Estonia's strategy for integrating its financial sector with that of the European Union (EU) is to upgrade its capacity for prudential regulation and supervision enough to gain recognition from its EU counterparts. Doing so is also a crucial complement to Estonia's strategy for strengthening macroeconomic policy and stabilization-especially because, under a currency board, its banks are a central part of the transmission mechanism for capital flows. Under the currency board banks have been able to arbitrage between domestic and foreign financial markets-increasingly funding themselves from abroad. Such arbitrage has become the key funding source for rapidly expanding credit, contributing to the country's large current account deficit. Estonian authorities are justified in tightening prudential regulation and supervision because of the risks associated with an overheating economy, general market volatility, and the possible deterioration in the quality of credit. Improvements in prudential regulation should be followed by improvements in the country's capacity to supervise banks and an upgrading of the banks' risk management systems, to manage the increasingly complex operations and diverse markets in which they engage. These steps should be a priority. The institutional development of banks and supervision have lagged behind market developments. In improving the regulatory framework for banks, Estonia should avoid establishing incentives for tax arbitrage that lead to the creation of artificial and socially costly financial intermediaries. This paper is a product of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit, Europe and Central Asia Region. The authors may be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected].

Download or read book WTO Accession for Countries in Transition written by Constantine Michalopoulos and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1998 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: June 1998 Accession to the World Trade Organization should be expedited, and the processing time for applications reduced to no more than two years. This would enable the WTO to achieve universal membership in the next five years, a worthwhile objective for the international community. Countries in transition have considered membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) an important step toward integration in the international economic system. After several years of negotiations, five members of the former Soviet Union (FSU)-Armenia, the three Baltic countries, and the Kyrgyz Republic-may become members in 1998. It will probably take longer for Russia, Ukraine, and some others. It takes four to five years to process applications for FSU countries-which is close to average for recent applicants. The five countries expected to accede to the WTO this year are among the more liberal members of the FSU. With those five processed, there will be a backlog of another 26 applications, most them countries in transition, including China and Russia. At the current rate of processing, it will take five to six years to process them-and a decade or more for the 25 or so developing and transition economies that have yet to apply. Processing is time-consuming because: * Legislative requirements needed for accession are time-consuming. * Candidate countries are weak institutionally and unfamiliar with the economic and legal issues to be addressed. * The fact finding process is unneccessarily cumbersome and time-consuming. * Technical assistance to applicants in meeting the requirements for WTO accession is not effectively coordinated. * Addressing the commercial interests of all members requires protracted negotiations. Governments seeking accession must coordinate the legislative and regulatory changes needed in their foreign trade regimes, adopt liberal trade policies, and identify areas of institutional weakness that require delays in implementation of WTO provisions and seek agreement on such delays. WTO members, for their part, should expedite the process, as universal membership is in everyone's best interest. They should: * Agree to suitable, time-bound extensions to allow acceding governments to address institutional weaknesses. * Provide coordinated assistance to acceding countries to strengthen their institutional capacity. * Streamline the fact finding aspects of the accession process and give the WTO secretariat the budgetary resources it needs to work with applicant governments for this purpose. This paper is part of a larger effort of the World Bank to collaborate with the World Trade Organization in developing approaches for the more effective integration of the developing countries and transition economies in the international trading system. The author may be contacted at [email protected].

Download or read book Poverty Correlates and Indicator based Targeting in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union written by Christiaan Grootaert and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1998 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: July 1998 Social protection systems in the transition economies have been inadequate to meet the challenges of transition, being both costly and poorly targeted. The largest group of poor people is the working poor-especially workers with little education (primary education or less) or outdated vocational or technical education. Grootaert and Braithwaite compare poverty in three Eastern European countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, and Poland) with poverty in three countries of the former Soviet Union (Estonia, Kyrgyz Republic, and Russia). They find striking differences between the post-Soviet and Eastern European experiences with poverty and targeting. Among patterns detected: * Poverty in Eastern Europe is significantly lower than in former Soviet Union countries. * Rural poverty is greater than urban poverty. * In Eastern Europe there is a strong correlation between poverty incidence and the number of children in a household; in the former Soviet Union countries this is less pronounced, except in Russia. * There is a gender and age dimension to poverty in some countries. In single-person households, especially of elderly women, the poverty rate is very high (except in Poland) and poverty is more severe. The same is true in pensioner households (except in Poland). In Poland the pension system has adequate reach. * Poverty rates are highest among people who have lost their connection with the labor market and live on social transfers (other than pensions) or other nonearned income. But through sheer mass, the largest group of poor people is the working poor-especially workers with little education (primary education or less) or outdated vocational or technical education. Only those with special skills or university education escape poverty in great numbers, thanks to the demand for their skills from the newly emerging private sector. * The poverty gap is remarkably uniform in Eastern European countries, especially Hungary and Poland, suggesting that social safety nets have prevented the emergence of deep pockets of poverty. This is much less true in the former Soviet Union, where those with the highest poverty rate also have the largest poverty gap. In the short to medium term, creating employment in the informal sector will generate a larger payoff than creating jobs in the formal (still to be privatized) sector, so programs to help (prospective) entrepreneurs should take center stage in poverty alleviation programs. This paper is a joint product of the Social Development Department and Europe and Central Asia, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under the research project Poverty and Targeting of Social Assistance in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (RPO 680-33). The authors may be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected].