The Unassuming Economist

From ASEAN Secretariat:

“Secretary-General of ASEAN, Dr. Kao Kim Hourn, participated in the APEC Ministerial Meeting 2024, held in Lima, Peru on 14 November 2024. In his intervention, Dr. Kao underlined the importance of innovation and digitalisation to promote the transition to the formal economy, as well as sustainable growth for resilient development. He highlighted regional initiatives such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and APEC’s Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific agenda as platforms for inclusive and interconnected economic growth.

The ASEAN Secretariat is one of the official observers of APEC, along with the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council. The ASEAN Secretariat has participated as an official observer for APEC since the first APEC Ministerial Meeting convened in Canberra, Australia, on 6-7 November 1989.”

From CNBC Africa:

“African resource-intensive countries need deep reforms and face an urgent need to diversify away from the resource sector for more durable and inclusive growth. That’s according to the IMF Sub-Saharan regional economic outlook, which highlights the need to ensure that their current macroeconomic policy mix is appropriate, while removing any key policy distortions that may be holding back business confidence and investment. The Bretton Woods institution also notes by 2030, half of the world’s new workers will be from sub-Saharan Africa. Catherine Pattillo, Deputy Director, African Division at the IMF joins CNBC Africa for more.”

From C40 cities:

“With nearly 16 million green jobs worldwide, mega-cities are key to driving inclusive growth and breaking with past economic inequalities. This demands people-centred policies at all levels, open dialogue with workers and unions, investment in social protections, and funding for a locally-led just transition.

Inequality is rising fastest in cities and mayors are taking action—delivering jobs, closing skills gaps, and cutting emissions through local Green New Deal projects. Yet, more investment is essential to accelerate progress. 

At U20 and COP29, mayors are urging national governments to boost urban climate finance, dedicate at least 40% of climate funds to local projects supporting low-income communities, workers, and vulnerable groups, and deepen collaboration with subnational leaders on policy design and implementation through initiatives like CHAMP.

C40 Cities’ resources show how cities can partner with governments, unions, businesses, youth, and communities to create good, green jobs for all.”

From andina:

“The President of the Republic Dina Boluarte on Thursday reaffirmed Peru’s commitment to fostering sustainable, inclusive, and robust economic growth during the Women’s Empowerment Forum held as part of APEC Peru 2024 currently underway in Lima.

Mrs. Boluarte emphasized that, with women making up half of the population in the region, empowering and including them is vital for driving economic growth.

Likewise, the top official highlighted the importance of engaging in ongoing dialogue with the private sector to identify more and better opportunities for women’s economic empowerment.

The president noted that, under Peru’s leadership of APEC this year, significant progress has been made toward building consensus on a comprehensive agenda focused on empowering vulnerable sectors, particularly women.

The Head of State underscored that these agreements will translate into “tangible actions that the member economies will implement starting next year.”

“Today, we renew our commitment to solid, secure, sustainable, and inclusive growth, placing citizens —especially those who have yet to reach their full potential— at the heart of our efforts,” she stated.”

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From a book chapter by Hites Ahir and Prakash Loungani:

“In April 2008, the IMF’s flagship publication World Economic Outlook provided estimates of overvaluation in house prices for a group of advanced economies. Though house prices had fallen in the United States in the preceding years, they had continued to rise in many other countries. The IMF’s analysis suggested that, with only a few exceptions, house prices were overvalued by between 10% and 30%, as shown by the bars in Fig. 7.1. The dots show the decline in house prices that occurred over the subsequent 4 years. In many countries where the IMF had assessed house prices to be overvalued, house prices did indeed fall quite significantly—these cases include Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Fast forward to the present: The IMF’s Global House Price Index—a simple average of real house prices for 57 countries—is now back to its level before the global financial crisis (GFC). The index has been inching up since 2012, making the duration of the run-up comparable to one in 2001–06 that ended in house price collapses in many countries. Is it time to worry again about overvaluation?

This chapter describes the evolution of IMF monitoring—“surveillance” in the IMF’s jargon—of housing markets from 2008 to the present. Section 2 describes how the IMF has assessed overvaluation in housing markets and the advice it offered on the policy tools needed to manage house price booms. It lays out the IMF’s ‘corporate view’ or ‘house view’ that macroprudential policies must be the first line of defense to deal with house price booms. Section 3 takes up the issue of whether the run-up in house prices over the past few years should be a source of worry. Section 4 describes how IMF surveillance has adapted as housing markets have become more ‘glocalized’ and developments at the sub-national level gain greater prominence.1 Section 5 has some concluding observations.”

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