IMF | CCAMTAC

The research seminar was dedicated to the presentation of FINEX - the new workhorse model of the Institute for Capacity Development (ICD) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). FINEX is a semi-structural macroeconomic model for policy analysis and forecasting that can be used in countries with imperfect capital mobility and hybrid monetary policy regimes. Read More

The research seminar was dedicated to the spillovers of US monetary policy shocks to the Caucasus, Central Asia and Middle East (CCAME) region. As inflation started rising in 2022-23 most central banks responded by raising the policy rates and committed to monetary policy tightening until inflation would fall to the target. Amid the global monetary tightening cycle most central banks closely monitored the monetary policy stance of the Fed in accommodating inflation due to the significant spillover effects it could have on the rest of the world. Read More

One of the most important elements of monetary policy frameworks (MPFs) for inflation-targeting economies is the communication of monetary policy. As inflation surged globally in 2022-2023, most central banks actively resorted to contractionary monetary policy by raising the policy rates, and communication was key in conveying the stance of monetary policy to the public and financial markets. This research seminar was dedicated to the analysis of monetary policy communication in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Mongolia (CCAM) region, and comparing the performance of central banks in terms of communication between emerging markets (EM) and advanced economies (AE). Read More

Due to the rapidly growing digitalization of payment systems across the globe, central banks are exploring the benefits and costs of issuing their own digital currencies, commonly referred to as Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). To assess the impact of CBDC issuance on the economy central banks need to know how much demand for CBDC exists and the key characteristics of CBDC that affect the demand for it. Read More

The research seminar addressed the relevance of fiscal rules as a stabilization tool for a commodity-exporting economy. The main purpose of the research was to analyze the cyclicality of fiscal policy under different fiscal rules and their effect on welfare and macroeconomic stability in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model for Kazakhstan. Read More

The current research seminar addresses the importance of the relationship between seigniorage and currency-in-circulation for all IMF member countries in times of digitalization of payment instruments and lower inflation. Recent technological advancements and innovations in payment systems should result in a decreasing demand for money that originates from the higher velocity of digital payment instruments. This phenomenon impedes central banks’ ability to generate seigniorage by trading non-interest bearing money against interest-bearing assets.. Read More

In economics, it is common to look at aggregate macroeconomic data to measure country or regional development and prosperity, such as GDP per capita. However, there are more specific indicators that focus on measuring the population’s wellbeing, income distribution, and inequality. To learn more about regional inequalities, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) commissioned a series of studies to benchmark the nature and features of inequalities among Kazakhstan’s regions (oblasts). Read More

The labor market in Kazakhstan will be largely affected by demographics, with many young workers entering the market, as well as digitalization, resulting in the increasing role of digital jobs. While the pandemic created a major shift in labor market demand in the past few years, a more recent migration will also affect the labor market developments in the region. Read More

February 23 & March 9, 2023 - An Estimated DSGE Model for Integrated Policy Analysis

The outcome of any important macroeconomic policy change is the net effect of forces operating on different parts of the economy. central challenge facing policymakers is how to assess the relative strength of those forces. Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models are the leading tool for making such assessments in an open and transparent manner. Read More

Raising Armenia’s long-term growth prospects is critical to increase jobs, achieve higher living standards, and slower or stop emigration. Based on a co-authored IMF working paper, Nathalie Reyes and Yulia Ustyugova (paper with Klakow Akepanidtaworn and Lili Karapetyan) started by providing an overview of Armenia’s export performance and analyzed factors and policy variables that affect export performance and its composition. Read More

Credit to the economy is a crucial aspect of economic policy. While monetary authorities consider credit channel when affecting inflation via policy rates, credit extension also helps to analyze the state and outlook for the economy. As a result, credit dynamics and conditions affecting credit market developments have been studied by policymakers from various perspectives. Recently the Central Bank of Azerbaijan conducted research to identify the effect of supply and demand factors on bank lending and stepped forward to share their findings with the CCAMTAC community. Read More

Declining but still, high dollarization rates in the Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA) region affect macroeconomic stability, monetary policy transmission, and financial sector development. Although several studies have investigated the dynamics of dollarization in the CCA, the relative roles of macro-financial policies and financial market development in the de-dollarization process have not yet been assessed empirically. The IMF’s working recent paper takes stock of de-dollarization efforts and explores the short-term drivers of financial de‐dollarization in the CCA region. Read More

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced a shift from traditional face-to-face instruction to online learning. After two years of distance/virtual learning, the question of the effectiveness of such delivery modality became relevant, as in-person delivery is being resumed in many countries, but the option of online learning remains present. From a policy standpoint, gauging the effectiveness of remote learning is crucial for designing and implementing tailored policies in areas of academic and professional education Read More

In her presentation, Ms. Filiz Unsal, one of the main developers of the IAPOC index, gave a very detailed explanation of the intuition behind the index, the methodology and the data collection process, and shared the main evidence obtained from the analysis of the index in terms of global and regional trends in monetary policy frameworks Read More

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, central banks from several small open economies have used foreign exchange (FX) interventions in order to stimulate economic activity and inflation, as their policy rates were close to the effective lower bound. How effective are such interventions and what is the broader economic impact? Read More

In his opening remarks, Norbert Funke highlighted that this was the first CCAMTAC research seminar given by one of CCAMTAC’s development partners, and he thanked Marta Skrzyńska, the Polish steering committee member, for the initiative. Presentations not only by country authorities, but also development partners and IMF staff will further support peer learning. Read More

According to IMF’s multidimensional index of financial development, CCA countries have made progress following their independence in the early 1990s. However, the progress was uneven across the CCA, resulting in a divergence of financial development over time and mixed performance relative to EM and LIC peers. Read More

Mr. Elchin Mustafayev presented a draft paper, prepared jointly with Ms. Nazrin Ramazanova, a CBA colleague, which used a small open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, with a financial accelerator and imperfect exchange rate pass-through, to provide a qualitative and quantitative characterization of the optimal monetary policies for Azerbaijan. Read More

The Seminar focused on the Minsitry of Finance of Armania's path to building a solid analytical capacity in dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) modeling. As a result, the Armenian team constructed a micro-founded small open economy model with New Keynesian features. Read More

The research by Shalva Mkhatrishvili, Giorgi Tsutskiridze and Lasha Arevadze suggests that when the collateral base for central bank operations is not huge, sterilized interventions may still affect interest rates, loan extension and, hence, the real economy (beyond the effects of exchange rate changes). Read More

The paper provides a useful example of how the central bank of Kazakhstan assesses the creditworthiness of individuals through machine learning algorithms, based on regulatory data provided by second-tier banks to the central bank. Read More

In the paper Aleksandr Shirkhanyan (Central Bank of Armenia, co-authors: Diego Jimenez-Hernandez and Joshua J. Kim (both Stanford University) analyzed how households make such savings decisions following a large currency depreciation in Armenia. Read More