After a short-lived slowdown in the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis and a swift rebound, emerging markets (EM) are now entering a period of slower growth. In fact, growth is now lower than the post-crisis peak of 2010-11, as well as the rates seen in the decade before the crisis. This raises the question of whether EMs can bounce back to the growth rates seen in the last decade or whether their prospects are dimmer than thought a few years ago. This SDN we will explore t...

This paper focuses on the types of "capital flow measures" that have been used, why and whether they met their objectives. The paper presents a balanced assessment of this, concluding that they were mostly implemented to protect financial sector stability (focused on specific targets), or to reduce volatility of inflows while not affecting total volumes. The paper also provides cross country case studies, and focuses on the impact of inflows on long term bond yields, interest rates, and wh...

Walter Bagehot's Lombard Street, published in 1873 in the wake of a devastating London bank collapse, explained in clear and straightforward terms why central banks must serve as the lender of last resort to ensure liquidity in a faltering credit system. Bagehot's book set down the principles that helped define the role of modern central banks, particularly in times of crisis--but the recent global financial meltdown has posed unforeseen challenges. The New Lombard Street...

Get the Most out of Your Canadian Government Pension!Are you getting everything you can from the government?The public pension system is complex and often changes, which means many people are not claiming money that they’re entitled to.Do you know all of your options for maximizing your pension?Many people missed out on government pensions because they failed to take action to maximize their benefits.

In this concise volume, leading economist John B. Taylor offers empirical research to explain what caused the current financial crisis, what prolonged it, and what dramatically worsened it more than a year after it began. The evidence he presents strongly suggests that specific government actions and interventions are largely to blame and that any future government interventions must be based on a clearly stated diagnosis of the problem and a rationale for the interventions.

In this highly original piece of work, Steven D. Gjerstad and Nobel Laureate Vernon L. Smith analyze the role of housing and its associated mortgage financing as a key element of economic cycles. The authors combine data from both laboratory and real markets to provide insight into the bubble propensity of real-world economic actors and use novel historical analysis on the Great Recession, the Great Depression, and all of the post-World War II recessions to establish the critical roles of ...

Real estate market growth in Canada experienced unprecedented growth in the last five years, driving housing prices to an unaffordable level for an average household and giving an impression of a housing bubble, similar to the one seen in the United States in 2007. Yet a large number of Canadian families are dreaming of becoming homeowners at any cost (even if they are not able to afford it) without clear understanding of risks and costs associated with a home purchase. But under current m...

This paper describes recently established deposit insurance systems, identifying emerging trends. In line with previous IMF work on the subject, it argues against the development of "best practices" applicable to all systems. Rather, it stresses the importance of incorporating each country’s individual objectives in adopting a deposit insurance system, as well as that country’s characteristics, to ensure an effective system that minimizes disincentives and distortions to financial sector i...

What caused Asia's largest economy, once the envy of the world, to lag behind many of the other industrial countries? And why did it take so long for Japan to recover from the bursting of its asset price bubble of the late 1980s? In this volume, a team from the International Monetary Fund examines the causes of the lingering economic problems of Japan, the crisis in its banking system, the reasons for weak business investment, and the government's efforts to kick-start the economy through a s...

The April 2014 Global Financial Stability Report finds that, despite much progress, the global financial system remains in a transitional period with stability conditions far from normal. Advanced and emerging market economies alike need to make a successful shift from liquidity- to growth-driven markets, which will require a number of elements, including a normalization of U.S. monetary policy; financial rebalancing in emerging markets; further progress in the euro area integration; and c...

The Global Financial Stability Report (GSFR), published twice a year by the IMF, provides timely analysis of developments in mature and emerging market countries and seeks to identify potential fault lines in the global financial system that could lead to crisis. The GFSR aims to deepen its readers’ understanding of global capital flows, which play a critical role as an engine of world economic growth. Along with the IMF’s semiannual World Economic Outlook, the GFSR is a key vehicle for the I...