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Growth in the Asia-Pacific region shows signs of improving as extreme risks emanating from advanced economies have receded and domestic demand remains resilient, supported by relatively easy financial conditions and robust labor markets. A small and gradual pick-up in growth to over 53⁄4 percent is projected in the course of 2013. Risks to the outlook from within the region, such as rising financial imbalances and asset prices in some economies, are coming clearer into focus. Although Asia’s banking and corporate sectors have solid buffers, monetary policymakers should stand ready to respond early and decisively to shifting risks, and macroprudential measures will also have a role to pla...
Asia’s financial systems proved resilient to the shocks from the global financial crisis, and growth since then has been strong. But new challenges have emerged in the region’s economies, including demographics and aging, the need to diversify from bank-dominated systems, urbanization and infrastructure, and the rebalancing of economic activity. This book takes stock of the challenges facing the region today and how economic systems in Asia’s advanced and emerging market economies compare with the rest of the world.
In recent years, macroprudential policy has become an increasingly active policy area. Many countries have adopted it as a tool to safeguard financial stability, in particular to deal with the credit and asset price cycles driven by global capital flows. This paper reviews the use of key macroprudential instruments and capital flow measures in 13 Asian economies and 33 economies in other regions since 2000, and constructs various macroprudential policy indices, aggregating sub-indices on key instruments. Asian economies appear to have made greater use of macroprudential tools, especially housing-related measures, than their counterparts in other regions. The effects of macroprudential policy are then assessed through an event study, cross-country macro panel regressions and bank-level micro panel regressions. The analysis suggests that macroprudential policy and capital flow measures have helped curb housing price growth, equity flows, credit growth, and bank leverage. The instruments that have been particularly effective in this regard include loan-to-value ratio caps, housing tax measures, and foreign currency-related measures.
Asia and the Pacific remains the global growth leader, albeit with a moderated pace of expansion since the global financial crisis. There is considerable diversity across the region: growth in China is slowing to a more sustainable pace, while in Japan a pickup in growth is expected. Non-oil commodity exporters have experienced sharply falling prices, while net importers have benefited from large changes in terms of trade. The April 2015 Regional Economic Outlook examines the volatility risks from this regional diversity, as well as Asia and Pacific’s role in global value chains and the factors affecting financial integration in Asia.
Unpaid work, such as caring for children, the elderly, and household chores represents a significant share of economic activity but is not counted as part of GDP. Women disproportionately shoulder the burden of unpaid work: on average, women do two more hours of unpaid work per day than men, with large differences across countries. While much unpaid care work is done entirely by choice, constraints imposed by cultural norms, labor market features or lack of public services, infrastructure, and family-friendly policies matter. This undermines female labor force participation and lowers economy-wide productivity. In this paper, we examine recent trends in unpaid work around the world using aggregate and individual-level data, explore potential drivers, and identify policies that can help reduce and redistribute unpaid work across genders. Conservative model-based estimates suggest that the gains from these policies could amount to up to 4 percent of GDP.
The macroeconomic outlook for sub-Saharan Africa continues to strengthen. Growth is expected to increase from 2.7 percent in 2017 to 3.1 percent in 2018, reflecting domestic policy adjustments and a supportive external environment, including continued steady growth in the global economy, higher commodity prices, and accommodative external financing conditions. Inflation is abating; and fiscal imbalances are being contained in many countries. Over the medium term, and on current policies, growth is expected to accelerate to about 4 percent, too low to create the number of jobs needed to absorb anticipated new entrants into labor markets.
The IMF’s 2019 External Sector Report shows that global current account balances stand at about 3 percent of global GDP. Of this, about 35–45 percent are now deemed excessive. Meanwhile, net credit and debtor positions are at historical peaks and about four times larger than in the early 1990s. Short-term financing risks from the current configuration of external imbalances are generally contained, as debtor positions are concentrated in reserve-currency-issuing advanced economies. An intensification of trade tensions or a disorderly Brexit outcome—with further repercussions for global growth and risk aversion—could, however, affect other economies that are highly dependent on foreign demand and external financing. With output near potential in most systemic economies, a well-calibrated macroeconomic and structural policy mix is necessary to support rebalancing. Recent trade policy actions are weighing on global trade flows, investment, and growth, including through confidence effects and the disruption of global supply chains, with no discernible impact on external imbalances thus far.
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.
Zusammenfassung: This book offers a comprehensive and authoritative review of bioactive substances found in plant underground stems, roots, rhizomes, corms, and tubers from all around the world. Tubers and starchy roots are plants that store edible starch content in underground stems, roots, rhizomes, corms, and tubers. They are a key source for both human and animal consumption and are rich in carbohydrates. They are widely used as industrial crops as well. Phytochemicals found in tubers and roots, such as phenolics, terpenoids, and alkaloids, have anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, hypoglycemic, hypocholesterolemic, and antibacterial properties. Except for common potatoes, sweet potatoes, and...
The global financial crisis originated in advanced economies, but had a major impact on emerging markets. The impact, however, was not uniform. Even in a relatively homogenous group of countries such as ASEAN-4 (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand), there were considerable differences both in terms of instantaneous impact of the crisis and in terms of output performance relative to trend. There are several main reasons for the divergence. First, trade shocks had a larger impact on more open economies (Malaysia and Thailand). Second, countercyclical fiscal stimulus in Indonesia and the Philippines was larger and was sustained longer. Third, idiosyncratic factors pushed output up in Indonesia and down in Thailand. Such factors include investment-friendly structural reforms and fortuitously timed election spending in Indonesia, as well as political instability and natural disasters in Thailand.