This paper presents an overview of the Ararat Fiscal Strategy Model (AFSM), which is a structural, New-Keynesian, DSGE, small open economy model with a rich fiscal block that includes several expenditure and revenue instruments, and types of debt. The AFSM is now a formal part of the Ministry of Finance analytical toolkit to do macroeconomic fiscal policy scenario analysis, which feeds into policy discussions, budget planning, and the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework. The model was applied to assses the macroeconomic impact of the “first wave” of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Armenian economy, including the mitigating effects of policy responses. AFSM simulations revealed a potential severe impact in 2020, with declines in GDP and consumption of 12.9 and 11.7 percent, respectively, and a cumulative loss of GDP of 38 percent for the period 2020-2023. They also highlighted a significant fiscal outlook deterioration that would increase public debt-to-GDP ratios by 18.8 percentage points over 2020-23. The package of counter-cyclical fiscal measures of 3.6 percent of GDP, however, was estimated to cushion the 2020 GDP decline by almost 2 percentage points, as well as protect jobs. A second AFSM application related to the 2018 public investment under-execution showed the importance of improving the efficiency of public investment to have positive macroeconomic and fiscal effects.

Republic of Armenia: Selected Issues

This book proposes digitalization as a promising direction for green growth and sustainable development of the economy of Central Asia. It reveals the advanced and unique hands-on and case-based experience of Central Asia in ESG management with the involvement of digital technologies and provides practical recommendations on the extension of the use of digital technologies in ESG management of the development of the green economy in Central Asia.

The Global Integrated Monetary and Fiscal model (GIMF) is a multi-region, forward-looking, DSGE model developed at the International Monetary Fund for policy analysis and international economic research. This paper documents the incorporation of corporate income, cash-flow and destination based cash-flow taxes into the model. The analysis presented considers the transmission mechanism of these taxes and details how financial frictions interact with each of the taxes.

This study takes stock of the current water resources management in Armenia, including diagnosing the main sub-sectors (agriculture, urban, environment, and energy), reviewing the institutional framework and implementation status of water-sector policies, identifying the main challenges and making recommendations on the next steps.

A New Keynesian model with government production, public compensation, and unemployment is fit to U.S. data to study the macroeconomic and fiscal effects of public wage reductions. We find that accounting for the type of government spending is crucial for its macroeconomic implications. Although reductions in public wages and government purchases of goods have similar effects on total output and the fiscal balance, the former can raise private output slightly, in contrast to the substantial contractionary effects of the latter. In addition, the baseline estimation finds that exogenous public wage reductions decrease private wages. Model counterfactuals show that sufficiently rigid nominal private wages can reverse the response of private wages, as the rigidity dampens the labor reallocation effect from the public to private sector that exerts downward pressure on private wages.

This publication sets out the results of a successfully completed project to undertake an energy and nuclear power planning (ENPP) study for Armenia. This involved analysis of key planning issues and scenarios for the future development of the energy sector in Armenia up to the period 2020, using IAEA energy planning models. The main objectives of the project were to contribute to the development of national energy policy and assess the future role of nuclear power in Armenia by providing proven methodologies and building institutional capacities for analysing different energy options.

CD-ROM contains: Environmental Performance Review (PDF) -- State of the Environment Report.

This report synthesizes the findings from several areas of work undertaken to assess what impact public sector employment has had on both the level and structure of employment. It also examines the impact of the public sector as employer on the labor market from two viewpoints: the level and share of public sector employment and the structure of this employment. First, an operational definition of the regular public sector is provided that has been used for collecting and classifying the data. Second, the findings of the regular public sector studies are summarized, e.g., levels, shares, growth rates of public sector employment and its distribution by various characteristics, as well as its relation to expenditure level. Third, the findings of a study on temporary direct job creation are used to illustrate the extent to which these programs can focus on special employment groups. Fourth, the implications of these two sets of findings for altering the aggregate level of employment are considered. Finally, some implications for altering the structure of employment are presented. (An appendix provides a table illustrating employment in general government in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development economies, 1960-1979.) (YLB)