Selected Issues

This 2020 Article IV Consultation focuses on Malta’s near and medium-term challenges and policy priorities and was prepared before coronavirus disease 2019 became a global pandemic and resulted in unprecedented strains in global trade, commodity and financial markets. Pursuing structural reforms is expected to help sustain Malta’s growth performance while promoting social inclusion. The focus should continue to be on encouraging female and elderly participation in the labor market, upskilling the labor force and stimulating innovation. Moreover, to safeguard the business climate, remaining governance shortcomings should be addressed without delay, including by stepping up the fight against corruption and by increasing the efficiency of the judicial system while ensuring its independence. Improving access to affordable housing remains a key priority in support of greater inclusion. It is imperative to maintain gradual consolidation to ensure a balanced structural budget excluding proceeds from the Individual Investor Program. The IMF staff suggests continuing addressing infrastructure needs while upgrading public investment efficiency. Improve fiscal risk analysis and management.

Inequality has drastically increased in many countries around the globe over the past three decades. The widening gap between the very rich and everyone else is often portrayed as an unexpected outcome or as the tradeoff we must accept to achieve economic growth. In this book, three International Monetary Fund economists show that this increase in inequality has in fact been a political choice—and explain what policies we should choose instead to achieve a more inclusive economy. Jonathan D. Ostry, Prakash Loungani, and Andrew Berg demonstrate that the extent of inequality depends on the policies governments choose—such as whether to let capital move unhindered across national boundaries, how much austerity to impose, and how much to deregulate markets. While these policies do often confer growth benefits, they have also been responsible for much of the increase in inequality. The book also shows that inequality leads to weaker economic performance and proposes alternative policies capable of delivering more inclusive growth. In addition to improving access to health care and quality education, they call for redistribution from the rich to the poor and present evidence showing that redistribution does not hurt growth. Accessible to scholars across disciplines as well as to students and policy makers, Confronting Inequality is a rigorous and empirically rich book that is crucial for a time when many fear a new Gilded Age.

This Selected Issues paper and Statistical Appendix analyzes the fiscal and structural issues affecting Malta’s economic performance, specifically the public enterprises and the tax system. The paper focuses on exchange rate policy and macroeconomic and legislative issues in the context of European Union membership. The standard summaries of the tax system and recent developments in the exchange and trade system are presented. The paper highlights that despite advances in the financial sector deregulation, tax reform, and trade liberalization during the 1990s, there are still key structural inadequacies in Malta.

This paper discusses infrastructure gaps vis-à-vis other EU countries that are most striking in road and energy networks, both in quality and quantity. This is reflected in an unparalleled gap in the approximated public capital stock. Long-term GDP benefits from increasing public investment are estimated to be substantial, ranging between 51⁄4 and 181⁄4 percent in net present value over 30 years. Malta’s authorities have started to tackle these challenges by upgrading and diversifying the energy system and by launching a comprehensive transport strategy. These efforts go in the right direction and should be implemented in a budget-neutral manner to support a further decline in the public debt-to-GDP ratio. Malta’s fiscal position has improved considerably in recent years, yet further buildup of fiscal buffers is needed against possible adverse macroeconomic conditions. Therefore, reallocating public spending from current to capital expenditure, as well as making public investment more efficient would help boosting infrastructure.

Malta: Selected Issues