Publication: Comparing Constraints to Economic Stabilization in Macedonia and Slovakia : Macro Estimates with Micro Narratives
Loading...
Published
2008-08
ISSN
Date
2012-05-31
Author(s)
Najdov, Evgenij
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper re-emphasizes the link from structural policies to enhanced macroeconomic stabilization using a small structural model estimated on quarterly data for Macedonia and Slovakia over 1995-2007. The success of macroeconomic stabilization, typically in the hands of monetary policy, is not only determined by a suitable choice of the nominal anchor, which shapes the reaction function of monetary policy, but also the constraints within which the monetary policy strives to achieve its objectives. The key attributes of the constraints to macroeconomic stabilization are economic rigidities and structural shocks. By benchmarking the estimated economic rigidities and structural shocks faced by Macedonia to those faced by Slovakia, the authors find that Macedonia has relatively weaker transmission mechanisms of monetary policy, higher output rigidity, and a lower exchange rate pass-through, and faces larger external shocks. For Macedonia, these relatively higher constraints on monetary policy together with the chosen exchange rate anchor result in greater output and inflation volatility relative to Slovakia. Hence, it appears that small, open economies with stronger economic rigidities should apply monetary policy regimes that allow for more flexible adjustments in external relative prices to enhance their macroeconomic stability.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Najdov, Evgenij; Melecky, Martin. 2008. Comparing Constraints to Economic Stabilization in Macedonia and Slovakia : Macro Estimates with Micro Narratives. Policy Research Working Paper No. 4691. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/6796 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication The Economic Value of Weather Forecasts: A Quantitative Systematic Literature Review(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-10)This study systematically reviews the literature that quantifies the economic benefits of weather observations and forecasts in four weather-dependent economic sectors: agriculture, energy, transport, and disaster-risk management. The review covers 175 peer-reviewed journal articles and 15 policy reports. Findings show that the literature is concentrated in high-income countries and most studies use theoretical models, followed by observational and then experimental research designs. Forecast horizons studied, meteorological variables and services, and monetization techniques vary markedly by sector. Estimated benefits even within specific subsectors span several orders of magnitude and broad uncertainty ranges. An econometric meta-analysis suggests that theoretical studies and studies in richer countries tend to report significantly larger values. Barriers that hinder value realization are identified on both the provider and user sides, with inadequate relevance, weak dissemination, and limited ability to act recurring across sectors. Policy reports rely heavily on back-of-the-envelope or recursive benefit-transfer estimates, rather than on the methods and results of the peer-reviewed literature, revealing a science-to-policy gap. These findings suggest substantial socioeconomic potential of hydrometeorological services around the world, but also knowledge gaps that require more valuation studies focusing on low- and middle-income countries, addressing provider- and user-side barriers and employing rigorous empirical valuation methods to complement and validate theoretical models.Publication Direct and Indirect Impacts of Transport Mobility on Access to Jobs: Evidence from South Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-12)Access to jobs is essential for economic growth. In Africa, unemployment rates are notably high. This paper reexamines the relationship between transport mobility and labor market outcomes, with a particular focus on the direct and indirect effects of transport connectivity. As predicted by theory, wages are influenced by the level of commuting deterrence. Generally, higher earnings are associated with longer commute times and/or higher commuting costs. Local accessibility is also important, especially for individuals with time constraints. Both direct and indirect impacts are found to be significant in South Africa, where job accessibility has been challenging since the end of apartheid. For the direct impact, the wage elasticity associated with commuting costs is significant. Returns on commute are particularly high for women. Local accessibility to socioeconomic facilities, such as shops and health services, is also found to have a significant impact, consistent with the concept of mobility of care. To enhance employment, therefore, it is crucial to connect people not only to job locations but also to various socioeconomic points of interest, such as markets and hospitals, in an integrated manner. This integration will enable individuals to spend more time working and commuting longer distances.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication From Policy to Practice: Lessons from the Implementation of the Refugee Work Rights Policy in Ethiopia(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-10)This paper examines the early implementation of Ethiopia’s refugee work rights policy, with a focus on the issuance of permits that enable refugees to engage in economic activities. Building on significant legal and institutional advances under the 2019 Refugee Proclamation and subsequent directives, the analysis explores how these reforms are being operationalized in practice. Using a mixed-methods approach, combining document review, administrative data analysis, and semi-structured interviews, the paper identifies both progress and remaining challenges. Permit issuance has increased since the adoption of detailed operational guidance in 2024, reflecting the Government of Ethiopia’s commitment to operationalizing its progressive legal framework and ensuring that refugees can exercise their right to work. However, take-up remains modest, with about 5.2 percent of the working-age population holding a permit. Preliminary evidence suggests that coordination gaps, limited subnational capacity, low awareness among refugees and employers, and disincentives to formalize in a largely informal labor market are contributing to the low take-up. The paper offers policy suggestions, grounded in the Ethiopian context and emerging evidence, to help translate legal commitments into improved labor market outcomes for refugees.Publication Monitoring Global Aid Flows: A Novel Approach Using Large Language Models(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-04)Effective monitoring of development aid is the foundation for assessing the alignment of flows with their intended development objectives. Existing reporting systems, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Creditor Reporting System, provide standardized classification of aid activities but have limitations when it comes to capturing new areas like climate change, digitalization, and other cross-cutting themes. This paper proposes a bottom-up, unsupervised machine learning framework that leverages textual descriptions of aid projects to generate highly granular activity clusters. Using the 2021 Creditor Reporting System data set of nearly 400,000 records, the model produces 841 clusters, which are then grouped into 80 subsectors. These clusters reveal 36 emerging aid areas not tracked in the current Creditor Reporting System taxonomy, allow unpacking of “multi-sectoral” and “sector not specified” classifications, and enable estimation of flows to new themes, including World Bank Global Challenge Programs, International Development Association–20 Special Themes, and Cross-Cutting Issues. Validation against both Creditor Reporting System benchmarks and International Development Association commitment data demonstrates robustness. This approach illustrates how machine learning and the new advances in large language models can enhance the monitoring of global aid flows and inform future improvements in aid classification and reporting. It offers a useful tool that can support more responsive and evidence-based decision-making, helping to better align resources with evolving development priorities.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Intertemporal Adjustment and Fiscal Policy Under a Fixed Exchange Rate Regime(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-04)The paper presents a dynamic model for small to medium open economies operating under a fixed exchange rate regime. The model provides a partial explanation of the channels through which fiscal and monetary policy affects the real exchange rate. An empirical investigation is conducted for the case of Argentina during the currency board period of 1991-2001. Empirical estimates show that fiscal policy may indeed be an efficient instrument for promoting macroeconomic stability insofar as it encourages convergence toward long-run equilibrium and alters the long-term balance between exports and consumption, both private and public. The simulation applied to Argentina shows that if the share of public spending in the economy is higher than the share of imports, an increase in the tax rate will stimulate capital stock slightly, at least in the short term, and depreciate the real effective exchange rate. In the long run, the fiscal policy affects the value of the real exchange rate and consequently external competitiveness.Publication Till Geography Do Us Part? Prolegomena to an Economic and Monetary Union between the Dominican Republic and Haiti(2010-03-01)This paper offers a preliminary assessment of the potential benefits and costs of an economic and monetary union (EMU) between the Dominican Republic and Haiti -- two countries sharing the same island but whose history is one of conflict and divergent economic prospects in recent decades. After a brief review of the historical context, it examines the nature of these potential benefits and costs. It then conducts a preliminary analysis (using basic statistical techniques) of some key criteria for the formation of an economic and monetary union between the two countries. A more formal analysis of business cycle synchronization, based on basic and extended integrated vector auto-regression models with exogenous variables (VARX), is developed next. Overall, the analysis suggests that at this stage several economic criteria are not satisfied for the two countries to fully benefit from an economic and monetary union. At the same time, however, the endogeneity of most of these criteria (including the degree of business cycle synchronization) militates in favor of an aggressive medium-term agenda for integration between them.Publication From Financieristic to Real Macroeconomics(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008)Macroeconomic "fundamentals" are a most relevant variable for economic development. However, there is wide misunderstanding about which are the "sound macroeconomic fundamentals," contributing to sustained economic growth. The approach in fashion in the mainstream world and international finance institutions (IFIs) emphasizes macroeconomic balances of two pillars: low inflation and fiscal balances. The author calls it financieristic macroeconomic balances. Additionally, a frequent assertion in the conventional literature is that an open capital account contributes to impose macroeconomic discipline in emerging economies (EEs). There is strong evidence that financieristic balances have not provided a macroeconomic environment contributing to sustained growth. A third pillar must be added, linked to the productive side of the economy. The behavior of aggregate demand, at levels consistent with potential gross domestic product (GDP), is a crucial part of a third pillar for real macroeconomic balances, which has frequently failed in neoliberal experiences. Similarly crucial parts are well-aligned macro-prices, like interest and exchange rates. Frequently, these prices and aggregate demand have behaved as outliers, as reflected in economies working either well below potential GDP (the most frequent result), or overheated, with a booming aggregate demand and a large external deficit. This paper analyses alternative macroeconomic environments faced by firms and workers in the productive side of the economy (the producers of GDP), and the interrelationship between financial and real variables. The author analyzes alternative structural countercyclical fiscal policies, intermediate exchange rate policies, and capital account approaches.Publication Does the Exchange Rate Regime Affect Macroeconomic Performance : Evidence from Transition Economics(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2001-07)To examine whether a country's exchange rate regime has any impact on inflation and growth performance in transition economies, the authors develop an empirical framework that addresses some of the main problems plaguing empirical work in this strand of the literature: the Lucas critique, the endogeneity of the exchange rate regime, and the sample selection problem. Empirical results demonstrate that the exchange rate regime does affect inflation performance. the results suggest that: 1) Transition countries with intermediate arrangements might reduce inflation if they were to adopt a fixed regime. 2) Switching from a floating regime to an intermediate regime might not reduce inflation. 3) An unanticipated float--when a country whose fundamentals make it unlikely to adopt another regime adopts a floating regime--results in lower inflation. Based on their results, it is not possible to infer more about one particular exchange rate regime being superior to another in terms of growth performance. But empirical findings do underscore the different effects that policy variables--and other variables influencing economic activity--have on growth under different exchange-rate arrangements.Publication Monetary Policy Strategies for Latin America(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2001-10)The authors examine possible monetary policy strategies for Latin America that may help lock in the gains the region attained in the fight against inflation in the 1990s. Instead of focusing the debate about the conduct of monetary policy on whether the nominal exchange rate should be fixed or flexible, the focus should be on whether the monetary policy regime appropriately constrains discretion in monetary policymaking. Three basic frameworks deserve serious discussion as possible long-run strategies for monetary policy in Latin America. The authors examine the advantages and disadvantages of a hard exchange-rate peg, monetary targeting, and inflation targeting, in light of monetary policy's recent track record in several Latin American countries, looking for clues about which of the strategies might be best suited to economies in the region. The answer: It depends on the country's institutional environment. Some countries appear not to have the institutions to constrain monetary policy if discretion is allowed. In those countries, there is a strong argument for hard pegs, including full dollarization, that allow little or no discretion to monetary authorities. In countries such as Chile, which can constrain discretion, inflation targeting is likely to produce a monetary policy that keeps inflation low yet appropriately copes with domestic and foreign shocks. Monetary targeting as a strategy for Latin America is not viable because of the likely instability of the relationship between inflation and monetary aggregates, of which there is ample international evidence. No monetary strategy can solve the basic problems that have existed in Latin American economies for a long time. The authors welcome the recent move in Latin American countries toward inflation targeting, but say no policy will succeed unless government policies also create the right institutional environment.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Business Ready 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-03)Business Ready (B-READY) is a new World Bank Group corporate flagship report that evaluates the business and investment climate worldwide. It replaces and improves upon the Doing Business project. B-READY provides a comprehensive data set and description of the factors that strengthen the private sector, not only by advancing the interests of individual firms but also by elevating the interests of workers, consumers, potential new enterprises, and the natural environment. This 2024 report introduces a new analytical framework that benchmarks economies based on three pillars: Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency. The analysis centers on 10 topics essential for private sector development that correspond to various stages of the life cycle of a firm. The report also offers insights into three cross-cutting themes that are relevant for modern economies: digital adoption, environmental sustainability, and gender. B-READY draws on a robust data collection process that includes specially tailored expert questionnaires and firm-level surveys. The 2024 report, which covers 50 economies, serves as the first in a series that will expand in geographical coverage and refine its methodology over time, supporting reform advocacy, policy guidance, and further analysis and research.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.