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Social Science

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Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Israel: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
Selected Issues
Keywords:
staff team; skill readiness; copyright page; IMF country; complementarity to AI; Labor markets; Europe; Global
Cover IMF How To Notes
How to Prepare a Gender Budget Statement
Magdalena Tomczynska-Smith
,
Gemma Preston
,
Virginia Alonso-Albarran
,
Laura A Gores
,
Teresa R Curristine
, and
Chloe Cho
Gender budgeting integrates a gender perspective into the budget process by promoting gender equality through both fiscal policies and public financial management (PFM) tools. A key PFM tool specific to gender budgeting is the Gender Budget Statement. Governments prepare Gender Budget Statements as a transparency and accountability document to communicate how the budget aims to improve gender equality. Gender Budget Statements must be accessible to a broad audience and present information that is succinct and easily understood. Typically, these statements are summary documents that bring together a government’s commitments, goals, priorities, plans, and strategies for addressing identified gaps in gender equality. They are prepared as part of the budget process, highlighting the programs and policies that have been designed to advance gender equality, along with the resources allocated. They are presented to the legislature with the budget documentation to support parliamentary scrutiny and debate. This note provides guidance on how to prepare a Gender Budget Statement. It covers the content that a typical statement should include, suggests steps for developing a statement, highlights the benefit of a staged approach to implementation and includes illustrative country examples.
Keywords:
gender budgeting; public financial management; fiscal transparency; gender equality; budget document; gender impact assessment; gender budget tagging; gender inequality; women; budget planning and preparation; gender diversity; Caribbean; Middle East and Central Asia; South America; Central America; Middle East; Africa; Asia and Pacific; Central Asia; how-to note; budget annex; annex to the budget bill; IMF how-to; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Portugal: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
Selected Issues
Keywords:
health spending review; innovation ecosystem; vis-à-vis Europe; Serviço Nacional de Saúde; R&D investment; Health care spending; Productivity; Public expenditure review; Health care; Global; Europe
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Barbados: 2026 Article IV Consultation and Request for a Stand-By Arrangement-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Barbados
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
The homegrown Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) 2022 Plan and supporting Fund arrangements have reinforced macroeconomic stability and facilitated structural reforms. A sustained improvement in the fiscal accounts has helped put public debt on a firm downward path, while international reserves have been rebuilt to comfortable levels. Barbados has also successfully returned to international capital markets, enabling partial early repayments to the Fund. Important structural fiscal reforms have been completed, alongside steps to strengthen climate resilience. These achievements extend the government’s commendable track record of ownership and program implementation.
Keywords:
Catastrophe Containment and Relief; fund holding; exchange rate arrangement; resident representative; fund relation; Anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT); Credit; Global; Caribbean; South America; Central America; Middle East
Cover Selected Issues Papers
Unleashing Potential: Structural Reforms for Boosting Long-Term Growth
Adina Popescu
,
Chan Kim
,
Simona Kovachevska Stefanova
,
Ming Ma
, and
Rimtautas Bartkus
This paper assesses North Macedonia’s long-term growth prospects and the potential output gains from structural reforms. Potential growth is estimated at 2.6–2.9 percent in 2025 using univariate filters and semi-structural models estimated with a Kalman filter, with results pointing to a small positive output gap. Benchmarking against EU and U.S. frontiers highlights sizable gaps in labor market outcomes, the business environment, and governance. Simulations suggest that closing half of the gap relative to CESEE peers could raise GDP by about 14 percent over five years. The paper discusses reform priorities and implementation considerations to support faster income convergence.
Keywords:
Potential Growth; Structural Reforms; North Macedonia; IMF country; IMF staff; issues paper; structural reform; long-term growth; Labor markets; Potential output; Productivity; Business environment; Global; Europe
Cover Selected Issues Papers
Diagnosis of Decreasing Labor Force Participation in Hong Kong SAR
Ceara Hui
,
Narayanan Raman
,
Hamid R Tabarraei
,
Stella Tam
,
Zhang Wu
,
Yizhi Xu
, and
Ruihua Yang
Hong Kong SAR is facing a sustained decline in labor force participation rate (LFPR), which accelerated in recent years, driven mainly by population aging and further exacerbated by a drop in participation among youth. While the decline in youth LFPR was partly attributable to the mechanical effect of rising share of non-local students in Hong Kong SAR, it also points to postponed labor market entry among the youth which largely reflects continued education. The underlying motivations may suggest shifting job market landscape and labor skill requirements amid structural sectoral shifts, the emergence of artificial intelligence, and more intense labor market competition with increasing labor force educational attainment.
Keywords:
Hong Kong SAR; Labor force participation; Population aging; Youth employment; Artificial intelligence; Educational attainment; issues paper; IMF country; IMF staff; Yizhi xu; Labor force; Labor markets; Asia and Pacific; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Persistent Temperature, Capital Structure, and the Long-Run Level of Output
Ha Nguyen
This paper shows that separating persistent (permanent) temperature changes from transitory weather fluctuations can reshape our understanding of the macroeconomic costs of warming. Using a Kalman filter state-space decomposition, it separates temperature into a permanent component and transitory weather fluctuations, and links the permanent component to trend output using a panel cointegration and error-correction framework. A one-degree Celsius higher permanent temperature is associated with a significant decline in the long-run level of output, with full adjustment unfolding over multiple decades to a century. Decomposing aggregate output into population and output per capita reveals that the long-run output losses operate primarily through demographic adjustment in the full sample, while in advanced economies, both long-run output per capita and population decline as the climate warms. Economies with higher capital intensity and more durable capital stocks experience larger long-run per capita output losses. These findings suggest that long-run economic vulnerability to persistent warming is more broadly distributed across rich and poor countries than the short-run weather literature implies, reflecting differences in capital structure. They complement rather than contradict the well-established finding that developing countries are more exposed to short-run weather shocks.
Keywords:
Temperature trends; weather shocks; cointegration; long-run growth; transitory weather fluctuation; IMF working papers; short-run weather literature; weather shock; output loss; climate component; Climate change; Capital productivity; Total factor productivity; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Namibia: 2026 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; and Staff Report
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
The 2026 Article IV Consultation discusses that Namibia’s economy faces headwinds, including depressed global diamond demand, gradual recovery of gold and livestock production, and elevated fuel prices from the war in the Middle East. Safeguarding macroeconomic stability requires maintaining fiscal prudence to place public debt on a downward path, carefully calibrating monetary policy to preserve the credibility of the exchange‑rate peg to the South African rand, and strengthening financial‑sector oversight to mitigate rising sovereign–financial sector linkages. Achieving inclusive and sustainable growth will require accelerating structural reforms to support private‑sector development, reduce regulatory bottlenecks, improve skills alignment, and enhance public investment efficiency, while establishing a robust and transparent framework to manage potential opportunities from developing oil, gas, and green hydrogen. Structural reforms are essential to unlock Namibia’s growth potential and ensure broad-based development. The emergence of oil, gas, and green hydrogen sectors presents an opportunity to diversify the economy and generate employment. Realizing these benefits will require clear policy frameworks, balanced local content strategies, and alignment of education and training systems with evolving labor market needs.
Keywords:
FAD TA; payment systems development; Sta TA; Institute for Capacity Development; producer price index; Namibia Cbdc; Anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT); Customs administration core functions; Fiscal stance; Global; Middle East; Africa; Southern Africa
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Peru: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This Selected Issues paper focuses on the macroeconomic threat of illegal mining in Peru. The post-pandemic spike in metal prices has triggered a rise in illegal mining activities across the region, and Peru is the largest exporter of illegal gold in the region. If not tackled, this widespread phenomenon could jeopardize Peru’s position as a reliable destination for mining investment and ultimately erode Peru’s growth potential. Illegal mining also has extensive repercussions beyond investment, impacting labor markets, socioeconomic development, and the institutional environment. Tackling illegal mining will require efforts to close existing legal gaps and establish clear pathways to formalization. It would be important to improve the state’s capacity to combat illegal mining and adopt a supply-chain approach to enforcement, as well as supply-side policies to reduce incentives to engage in illegal mining. Revamping the fiscal decentralization framework and redesigning natural resource revenue-sharing formulas would also improve the efficiency of public investment and raise local living standards. Sectoral diversification policies would expand economic opportunities in mining communities and provide alternatives to illegality.
Keywords:
staff team; copyright page; IMF country; selected issue; illegal mining; macroeconomic threat; Mining sector; Gold; Copper; Metal prices; Global; South America
Cover Selected Issues Papers
Resilience Through Inclusion: Women and Data-Driven Climate Policies in Rwanda
Maria Gelrud
,
Marina Marinkov
,
Jorge Mondragon
, and
Daniela Viana Costa
Climate shocks represent a recurrent macroeconomic risk for Rwanda, affecting growth, fiscal stability, and household welfare. Gender inclusion is macro-critical to Rwanda’s growth and resilience strategy, shaping the effectiveness of adaptation and fiscal policy responses. Women are highly exposed to these shocks due to their concentration in agriculture and informal employment, as well as more limited access to finance, assets, and coping mechanisms. Using both micro- and macro-level analysis, this paper finds that climate shocks widen gender income disparities and that closing gender gaps enhances the effectiveness of adaptation policies and accelerates post-shock recovery. Rwanda’s data-driven policy tools—climate budget tagging, gender budget tagging, and the dynamic social registry—offer a strong foundation for linking climate and gender objectives within fiscal policy. Strengthening these instruments and promoting women’s participation in the green transition would help sustain resilience, inclusion, and long-term growth.
Keywords:
Climate Change; Disasters; Climate Policy; Gender; issues paper; climate adaptation; IMF country; policies in Rwanda; climate integration; Women; Natural disasters; Wages; Global