International Monetary Fund

Data cited at: Balance of Payments(BOP) and International Investment Position(IIP), World and Regional Aggregates, The International Monetary Fund BOPSY Global Tables aggregate country data by major balance of payments components and by international investment position (IIP) data for (i) Net IIP and (ii) Total Assets and Total Liabilities. Data for countries, country groups, and the world are provided. In addition to data reported by countries as shown in BOPSY, balance of payments data are provided for international organizations in BOPSY Global Tables. The BOPSY Global Tables include, in addition to reported data, data derived in a few instances indirectly from published sources.

Data cited at: Consumer price indexes, The International Monetary Fund Consumer price indexes (CPIs) are index numbers that measure changes in the prices of goods and services purchased or otherwise acquired by households, which households use directly, or indirectly, to satisfy their own needs and wants. In practice, most CPIs are calculated as weighted averages of the percentage price changes for a specified set, or ‘‘basket’’, of consumer products, the weights reflecting their relative importance in household consumption in some period. CPIs are widely used to index pensions and social security benefits. CPIs are also used to index other payments, such as interest payments or rents, or the prices of bonds. CPIs are also commonly used as a proxy for the general rate of inflation, even though they measure only consumer inflation. They are used by some governments or central banks to set inflation targets for purposes of monetary policy. The price data collected for CPI purposes can also be used to compile other indices, such as the price indices used to deflate household consumption expenditures in national accounts, or the purchasing power parities used to compare real levels of consumption in different countries.

The latest World Economic Outlook reports stable but underwhelming global growth, with the balance of risks tilted to the downside. As monetary policy is eased amid continued disinflation, shifting gears is needed to ensure that fiscal policy is on a sustainable path and to rebuild fiscal buffers. Understanding the role of monetary policy in recent global disinflation, and the factors that influence the social acceptability of structural reforms, will be key to promoting stable and more rapid growth in the future.

Private fixed investment in advanced economies contracted sharply during the global financial crisis, and there has been little recovery since. Investment has generally slowed more gradually in the rest of the world. Although housing investment fell especially sharply during the crisis, business investment accounts for the bulk of the slump, and the overriding factor holding it back has been the overall weakness of economic activity. In some countries, other contributing factors include financial constraints and policy uncertainty. These findings suggest that addressing the general weakness in economic activity is crucial for restoring growth in private investment.

The IMF’s World Revenue Longitudinal Data set (WoRLD) is a compilation of government tax and non-tax revenues from the IMF’s Government Finance Statistics and World Economic Outlook, and drawing on the OECD Revenue Statistics and Revenue Statistics in Latin American and the Caribbean.