Public Spending on Health Care under IMF-Supported Programs

By Sanjeev Gupta and Baoping Shang

Versions in Français (French),  Português (Portuguese), and Español (Spanish)

Government policies matter when it comes to public health. And when a country’s economy is suffering a severe economic crisis, the decisions become even more critical.  Over the past few decades, protecting social programs and spending on health has been a cornerstone of the IMF’s support for countries. 

Restoring Jobs by Restoring Growth

By Min Zhu

Over 200 million people are unemployed around the world, with double-digit jobless rates in many European countries and in many emerging markets. Youth unemployment and long-term unemployment are at alarming levels.

The number of unemployed people is nearly 16 million higher today than in 2007 among countries where labor markets are tracked regularly by the IMF. Much of this increase has been in advanced economies (Chart 1).

The need to tackle the unemployment crisis in these economies is self-evident. But what is to be done?

Global Crisis — Top Links from the IMF for Economics and Finance

Our top links for June, 2012 from iMFdirect blog and others:

• Crisis in the Euro Area — IMF urges concrete road map to complete monetary union to boost confidence and revive growth
• The Crisis and Beyond—Finance & Development magazine looks at five years since crisis began
• Fixing the System–what still needs to be done?
• Global imbalances: “stable disequilibrium“
• Triple Threat–three obstacles to a green future, with the global economic crisis smothering action on global warming and feeding an expanding gap between haves and have-nots
• Asia: China’s narrowing current account surplus; India’s investment difficulties; Japan–Europe dampens outlook
• Africa:  Côte d’Ivoire gets $7 billion debt relief; Africa’s Changing Times
• LICs: Expanding financial sectors
• Latin America: how “systemic” is Brazil?
• Middle East: why the Arab world needs an “Economic Spring“
• Oil: absorbing price volatility; five reasons why it’s different now
• F&D magazine on Facebook
• People in Economics: our profile of Elinor Ostrom and nine other Nobel Prize winners
• Track global economic news and analysis from IMF Survey on its new Google+ channel