Saleh M. Nsouli

The speed of adjustment and the sequencing of economic reforms: Issues and guidelines for policymakers

This paper reviews the issues involved in determining the appropriate speed of adjustment and the sequencing of economic reforms, focusing on considerations relevant to policymakers. It points out that the debate between the protagonists of a high-speed approach and those favoring a gradualist approach is based primarily on the weights given to adjustment costs, policy credibility, reform feasibility, and risk assessment. It underscores the importance of appropriate sequencing and the impact of sequencing on the speed of adjustment and reforms. The paper concludes by highlighting factors that policymakers should consider when selecting their approach toward speed and sequencing.

Institutions, Program Implementation, and Macroeconomic Performance

This paper assesses empirically the links among a countrys institutions and political environment, its implementation of IMF-supported programs, and macroeconomic performance in a sample of 197 programs approved between 1992 and 2002. We find that a stronger institutional and political environment is associated with better macroeconomic outcomes, especially at longer time horizons. This direct beneficial effect of institutions on macroeconomic outcomes is in addition to their indirect effect through better program implementation. We also find that program implementation exerts an independent influence on macroeconomic outcomes, especially over shorter time horizons of up to two years. Better-implemented programs are associated with lower inflation and with initially weaker but ultimately stronger external and fiscal outcomes, but with a statistically insignificant impact on economic growth.

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD): Opportunities and Challenges

This paper reviews major issues involved in achieving the objectives of the New Partnership for Africas Development (NEPAD). Using a simple framework for evaluation, the analysis highlights considerations relevant to policymakers in the areas of poverty reduction, macroeconomic policies, trade promotion, attracting capital flows, and governance and institutional reforms. The analysis also identifies risks involved in achieving NEPADs objectives. To minimize these risks, it will be important to make some goals more operational, to further broaden and deepen stakeholder participation, to establish a sound basis for monitoring progress, to prepare contingency plans, and to harmonize the role of regional institutions with NEPAD initiatives.

Six Puzzles in Electronic Money and Banking

The literature on the economic effects of electronic money and banking lacks organization and a common analytical framework. This paper identifies the main issues raised by e-money and e-banking and presents them as six puzzles. Our solutions to the puzzles build a framework for analyzing the effects of e-money and e-banking, and for choosing the appropriate approach to regulating electronic money and banking.

Big Bang Versus Gradualism in Economic Reforms: An Intertemporal Analysis with an Application to China

This paper analyzes issues concerning the speed of adjustment and sequencing of reforms in a transition economy. It presents a dynamic general equilibrium model parameterized with Chinese data. The model is used to generate different policy simulations that highlight the importance of the policy instruments used during the transition period. The simulations consider privatization, tariff reform, and devaluation, as well as alternative speeds of introducing these policies. They show that different speeds of adjustment, as well as sequencing of reforms, will have very different implications for macroeconomic aggregates.

The speed of adjustment of the actual to the desired money stock: A comparative study

Abstract This article examines whether there are significant differences in the speed of adjustment of the actual to the desired money stock among major industrialized countries. Demand for money functions, including a partial adjustment hypothesis, were estimated for the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France and Japan essentially over the period 1960–1976. The functions were tested for stability and found to be stable in most cases. The estimations show that, mainly with the exception of Germany and the United Kingdom for broad money, the speed of adjustment is relatively high. These results tend to support monetarist views. The statistical test for differences in the speed of adjustment revealed that only a few significant differences exist when narrow money is used. When broad money is used, howeever, the United Kingdom and Germany are shown to have significantly slower speeds of adjustment than almost all the other countries.

The Speed of Adjustment and the Sequencing of Economic Reforms

The automatic injection device of the invention comprises an injection syringe having a syringe body provided with a lateral injection-liquid supply tubulure, retention means for retaining the animal to be treated, enabling the latter to be placed in a given transverse position and at a given angle with respect to the syringe, syringe displacement means for advancing and withdrawing the syringe at each injection, and piston displacement means for displacing the piston with respect to the syringe body. Such a device enables for example about at least 2000 chicks to be vaccinated per hour, while at the same time ensuring a dosing accuracy on the order of 1/100 and an exact location of the point of injection.

The New International Financial Architecture and Africa

The new international financial architecture can help African countries benefit from globalization, while minimizing the risks, and foster an environment conducive to increased domestic investment and higher sustained growth. This paper highlights the progress that African countries have made in several areas of the new architecture, but it also underscores the considerable way that these countries must go to meet the requirements of the new architecture.

Theoretical aspects of trade, risk and growth

Abstract An intertemporal model of an open economy incorporating risk in the export price is developed. It is shown how the optimal trajectories for consumption, investment, growth, exports, and resource allocation can be determined using dynamic stochastic programming. The risk sensitivity and time effects of the various trajectories are analyzed for the case of a logarithmic social utility function. Interestingly, the results obtained are not all in conformance with the conventional results of portfolio theory analysis as applied to savings.

The Millennium Development Goals, Capacity Building, and the Role of the IMF

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) represent a global commitment to improve economic and social conditions in low-income countries. Capacity building is key to promoting higher economic growth, which, in turn, is an important prerequisite for making progress toward the MDGs. This paper uses the UNDPs emerging framework for capacity building to show how the IMF supports capacity building at the individual, organizational, and the system level, thereby contributing to the efforts of countries to meeting the MDGs.