The Global Integrated Monetary and Fiscal model (GIMF) is a multi-region, forward-looking, DSGE model developed by the Economic Modeling Division of the IMF for policy analysis and international economic research. Using a 5-region version of the GIMF, this paper illustrates the model’s macroeconomic properties by presenting its responses under a wide range of experiments, including fiscal, monetary, financial, demand, supply, and international shocks.

This paper presents GMMET, the Global Macroeconomic Model for the Energy Transition, and provides documentation of the model structure, data sources and model properties. GMMET is a large-scale, dynamic, non-linear, microfounded multicountry model whose purpose is to analyze the short- and medium-term macroeconomic impact of curbing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The model provides a detailed description of GHG-emitting activities (related to both fossil fuel and non-fossil-fuel processes) and their interaction with the rest of the economy. To better capture real world obstacles of the energy transition, GMMET features a granular modelling of electricity generation (capturing the intermittency of renewables), transportation (capturing network externalities between charging stations and electric vehicle adoption), and fossil fuel mining (replicating estimated supply elasticities at various time horizons). The model also features a rich set of policy tools for the energy transition, including taxation of GHG emissions, various subsidies, and regulations.

The Global Integrated Monetary and Fiscal model (GIMF) is a multi-region DSGE model developed by the Economic Modeling Division of the IMF for policy and scenario analysis. This paper compares two versions of GIMF, GIMF with a conventional financial accelerator, where bank balance sheets do not play a prominent role, and GIMF with both a financial accelerator and a fully specified banking sector that can make lending losses, and that is regulated according to Basel-III. We illustrate the comparative macroeconomic properties of both models by presenting their responses to a wide range of fiscal, demand, supply and financial shocks.

This Selected Issues paper focuses on various challenges and opportunities related to reaping Indonesia’s demographic dividend. Demographic trends can impact growth through various channels. These include the size of the labor force, productivity, and capital formation. Indonesia’s growth is set to have a sizeable tailwind from demographic trends. The paper suggests that Indonesia should seize the window of opportunity to reap the demographic dividend, as aging is projected to start kicking in less than 15 years. In the long-term, Indonesia can grow old before becoming rich. The rapid speed of aging implies that Indonesia, similar to many Asian economies, may face the prospect of becoming old before becoming rich. Given Indonesia’s favorable demographic trends, policies should focus first on maximizing the demographic dividend. Reaping the demographic dividend requires appropriate policies to raise productivity and create enough quality jobs for the growing working-age population. Investing in human capital early on, including education and health care, is essential to improve the productivity of the workforce and increase the size of the demographic dividend.

Persistently high debt ratios in advanced economies and emerging fragilities in the developing world cast clouds on the global fiscal landscape. In advanced economies, with narrowing budget deficits, the average public debt ratio is expected to stabilize in 2013–14—but it will be at a historic peak. At the same time, fiscal vulnerabilities are on the rise in emerging market economies and low-income countries—on the back, in emerging market economies, of heightened financial volatility and downward revisions to potential growth, and in low-income countries, of possible shortfalls in commodity prices and aid. Strengthening fiscal balances and buttressing confidence thus remain at the top of the policy agenda. Against that backdrop, this issue explores whether and how tax reform can help strengthen public finances. Taxation is always a sensitive topic and is now more than ever at the center of policy debates around the world. Can countries tax more, better, more fairly? Results reported in this issue show that the scope to raise more revenue is limited in many advanced economies and, where tax ratios are already high, the bulk of the necessary adjustment will have to fall on spending. In emerging market economies and low-income countries, where the potential for raising revenue is often substantial, improving compliance remains a central challenge.

This Selected Issues paper on Finland discusses that the country is struggling to recover from the Great Recession, indicating that deeper, structural issues may be holding back growth. Estimates of potential output for Finland are an important part of the toolkit for policymakers—but they come with a degree of uncertainty. As this paper illustrates, the use of different methodologies and assumptions can lead to different results. However, there are indications that Finnish potential output growth is low at this juncture. From 1997 to 2007, potential growth, independent of the choice of smoothing, averages 3.2 percent per year. In 2013, that average has dropped to 0.2 with several of the models producing negative growth. This result indicates that the lack of a recovery in Finland is largely structural in nature. Therefore, any indication that the output gap is closing is due to falling potential rather than a pickup in growth. This leads to the advantages of structural reforms aiming to enhance Finland’s long-term capacity. Total factor productivity enhancing measures could be crucial in helping the economy recover despite the time it takes to implement them.

Germany and the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia (the CE4) have been in a process of deepening economic integration which has lead to the development of a dynamic supply chain within Europe—the Germany-Central European Supply Chain (GCESC). Model-based simulations suggest two key policy implications: First, as a reflection of strengthening trade linkages, German fiscal spillovers to the CE4 and more broadly to the rest of the euro area, have increased over time, but are still relatively small. This is explained by the supply chain nature of trade integration: final demand in Germany is not necessarily the main determinant of CE4 exports to Germany. Second, increased trade openness in both Germany and the CE4 implies a greater exposure of the GCESC to global shocks. However, owing to its strong fundamentals—including sound balance sheets and its safe haven status— Germany plays the role of a regional anchor of stability by better absorbing shocks from other trading partners instead of amplifying their transmission across the GCESC.