In the June 2015 issue, the Research Summaries review "Migration: An Attractive Insurance Option in African Countries" (Ahmat Jidoud) and "Investment in Emerging Markets" (Nicolas E. Magud and Sebastian Sosa). The Q&A looks at "Seven Questions on Islamic Finance” (Inutu Lukonga). The Bulletin also includes its regular listings of recent IMF Working Papers and Staff Discussion Notes, as well as information on the "IMF Economic Review." A new IMF eLibrary discussion site on energy and climate change is highlighted, along with new recommendations from IMF Publications.

We explore two issues triggered by the crisis. First, in most advanced countries, output remains far below the pre-recession trend, suggesting hysteresis. Second, while inflation has decreased, it has decreased less than anticipated, suggesting a breakdown of the relation between inflation and activity. To examine the first, we look at 122 recessions over the past 50 years in 23 countries. We find that a high proportion of them have been followed by lower output or even lower growth. To examine the second, we estimate a Phillips curve relation over the past 50 years for 20 countries. We find that the effect of unemployment on inflation, for given expected inflation, decreased until the early 1990s, but has remained roughly stable since then. We draw implications of our findings for monetary policy.

Articles in the March 2015 Research Bulletin focus on the oil market, energy subsidies, and output. The Research Summary on "An Exploration in Deep Corners of the Oil Market," authored by Rabah Arezki, Douglas Laxton, Armen Nurekyan, and Hou Wang, examines fluctuations in oil prices. "The State Budget May Afford It All," by Christian Ebeke and Constant Lonkeng Ngbouana, reviews energy subsidies and their fiscal, distributional, and environmental costs. In the “Q&A” column Pau Rabanal takes a look at “Seven Questions on Potential Output.” The Bulletin includes a listing of recent IMF Working Papers, Staff Discussion Notes, recommended readings from IMF Publications, and a call for papers for the next Annual Research Conference. A link with information and free access to IMF Economic Review is also included.

The December issue of the Research Bulletin looks at “Seven Questions about Climate Change” (Rabah Arezki and Akito Matsumoto). The Research Summaries review “Winning the Oil Lottery: The Impact of Natural Resource Extraction on Growth” (Tiago Cavalcanti, Daniel Da Mata, and Frederik Toscani) and “Malaysia: Achieving High-Income Status through Resilience and Inclusive Growth” (Alex Mourmouras and Naimh Sheridan). The issue also includes regular updates on new IMF Working Papers, Staff Discussion Notes, IMF books, and the IMF Economic Review.

“Leaning against the wind” (LAW) with a higher monetary policy interest rate may have benefits in terms of lower real debt growth and associated lower probability of a financial crisis but has costs in terms of higher unemployment and lower inflation, importantly including a higher cost of a crisis when the economy is weaker. For existing empirical estimates, costs exceed benefits by a substantial margin, even if monetary policy is nonneutral and permanently affects real debt. Somewhat surprisingly, less effective macroprudential policy and generally a credit boom, with resulting higher probability, severity, or duration of a crisis, increases costs of LAW more than benefits, thus further strengthening the strong case against LAW.

The September 2016 issue of the IMF Research Bulletin includes the following two Research Summaries: “A New Look at Bank Capital” (by Jihad Dagher, Giovanni Dell’Ariccia, Luc Laeven, Lev Ratnovski, and Hui Tong) and “Does Growth Create Jobs?: Evidence for Advance and Developing Economies (by Zidong An, Nathalie Gonzalez Prieto, Prakash Loungani, and Saurabh Mishra). The Q&A article by Rabah Arezki discusses “Seven Questions on Rethinking the Oil Market in the Aftermath of the 2014-16 Price Slump.” A listing of recent IMF Working Papers, Staff Discussion Notes, and Recommended Readings from IMF Publications are also included. Readers can also find an announcement on the 2016 Annual Research Conference and links to top cited 2015 articles in the IMF Economic Review.

Provides statistical information on the worldwide population of people 65 years old or older.

The IMF Research Bulletin includes listings of recent IMF Working Papers and Staff Discussion Notes. The research summaries in this issue are “Explaining the Recent Slump in Investment” (Mathieu Bussiere, Laurent Ferrara, and Juliana Milovich) and “The Quest for Stability in the Housing Markets” (Hites Ahir). The Q&A column reviews “Seven Questions on Estimating Monetary Transmission Mechanism in Low-Income Countries” (Bin Grace Li, Christopher Adam, and Andrew Berg). Also included in this issue are updates on the IMF’s official journal, the IMF Economic Review, and recommended readings from IMF Publications.

This paper examines the recent behavior of core inflation in the United States. We specify a simple Phillips curve based on the assumptions that inflation expectations are fully anchored at the Federal Reserve’s target, and that labor-market slack is captured by the level of shortterm unemployment. This equation explains inflation behavior since 2000, including the failure of high total unemployment since 2008 to reduce inflation greatly. The fit of our equation is especially good when we measure core inflation with the Cleveland Fed’s series on weighted median inflation. We also propose a more general Phillips curve in which core inflation depends on short-term unemployment and on expected inflation as measured by the Survey of Professional Forecasters. This specification fits U.S. inflation since 1985, including both the anchored-expectations period of the 2000s and the preceding period when expectations were determined by past levels of inflation.