Working Papers
January 1, 0001
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1994
September 1, 1994
Foreign Exchange Auctions and Fixing: A Review of Performance
Description: The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and national and international economic developments.
September 1, 1994
Technological Change, Relative Wages, and Unemployment
Description: This paper examines the effect of skill-biased technological change on the structure of wages, the composition of employment and the level of unemployment in a two-sector economy with a heterogenous work force. Efficiency wage considerations and minimum wage legislation lead to labor market segmentation. A technological shock that reduces the demand for unskilled labor and raises the demand for skilled labor in the primary, high-wage sector is shown to increase the relative wage of skilled workers and reduce aggregate employment as well as the employment level of unskilled workers in that sector. The net effect of the shock on the employment level of skilled workers is mitigated by the existence of efficiency factors.
September 1, 1994
Disequilibrium in the Labor Market in South Africa
Description: The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and national and international economic developments.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 42, No. 3, September 1995.
September 1, 1994
The Role of offshore Centers in International Financial Intermediation
Description: The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and national and international economic developments.
September 1, 1994
The Pay-As-You-Earn Taxon Wages: Options for Developing Countries and Countries in Transition
Description: The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and national and international economic developments.
September 1, 1994
Eastern Europe: Factors Underlying the Weakening Performance of Tax Revenues
Description: The paper analyzes the decline of tax revenue/GDP ratios in transition economies of central and eastern Europe. The paper separates the effect on revenues of discretionary policy actions and finds that endogenous factors, notably the collapse of underlying profits and declining effective tax rates, were the main source of falling tax revenue/GDP ratios. Underlying factors are analyzed to provide a basis to discuss the outlook for tax revenues in coming years.
Notes: Discusses Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic, and the former Czechoslovakia.
September 1, 1994
Emerging Equity Markets in Middle Eastern Countries
Description: Within a broad framework for analyzing portfolio capital flows to developing countries, the paper undertakes a comparative analysis of equity markets in six Middle Eastern countries. The analysis, based primarily on a range of quantitative indicators, identifies the principal characteristics of these markets, including relative to international comparators, and examines associated structural features. This, along with an analysis of the informational efficiency of selected markets in the region, provides a basis for the subsequent review of policies for enhancing the role of equity markets in the macroeconomy of Middle Eastern countries.
Notes: Discusses Egypt, Islamic Republic of Iran, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey. Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 42, No. 2, June 1995.
September 1, 1994
Sequencing of Financial Sector Reforms: A Review
Description: This paper provides a review of the literature on both analytical issues and country experiences on the sequencing of financial sector reforms. It discusses the choice between big-bang and gradual reforms, the relationship of financial sector reforms to other economic reforms, the internal sequencing of financial sector measures and the influence of initial conditions. It is concluded that a pragmatic approach to the sequencing issue is necessary as there are only a few general principles valid for all countries.
September 1, 1994
Corruption, Governmental Activities, and Markets
Description: Paper discusses the factors that contribute to the spread of corruption as well as the implications of corruption for markets and for public sector activities. It is argued that corruption can be contained mainly by a scaling down of the public sector activities that stimulate its growth.