White Papers
IMF Working Paper-Population Aging and Pension Reforms in China
February 20, 2026--China is experiencing rapid population aging and a declining workforce, posing significant economic and fiscal challenges, especially to the pension system. This paper examines the evolution of China's pension system, assesses its gaps relative to international peers, and evaluates the macro-fiscal implications of population aging and various pension reforms.
Using a calibrated overlapping generations model that explicitly incorporates the rural-urban disparities, we project that population aging alone can slow annual GDP growth by about 2 percentage points between 2024 and 2050, while pension spending can rise by nearly 10 percentage points of GDP. The 2024 retirement age reform eases some of the long-term growth and fiscal sustainability pressures, raising GDP growth by 0.2 percentage points annually and reducing pension spending from 15.3 percent to 11.9 percent of GDP by 2050. We also use the model to examine a set of policy-relevant reforms-doubling Residents Pension Scheme benefits which are currently inadequate, linking benefits to life expectancy, further increasing the retirement age, and promoting urbanization-and find significant effects on fiscal and macroeconomic outcomes.
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Source: imf.org
IMF Working Paper-Optimal Exchange Rate Policy with Oil Shocks
February 20, 2026--Summary
We study optimal monetary and exchange rate policy in a small open economy facing oil price shocks. In a model with segmented financial markets that generate endogenous UIP deviations, the first-best allocation is achieved through a combination of interest rate policy and foreign exchange intervention (FXI). Monetary policy stabilizes domestic inflation and the output gap, while FXI targets the UIP wedge to offset financial frictions.
Oil price shocks endogenously move the net foreign asset position, giving rise to financial imbalances that make FXI essential-a mechanism distinct from exogenous financial shocks highlighted in the literature. Quantitatively, for a calibrated oil exporter, suboptimal regimes such as a free float or a simple peg entail sizable welfare losses of around 2% in consumption-equivalent terms, though peg, and especially peg with fuel subsidies, can outperform free floats. Overall, FXI is crucial to break the destabilizing link between real commodity shocks and financial risk premia.
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Source: imf.org
IMF Staff Country Report-Australia: Selected Issues
February 15, 2026--The re-elected government has laid out a bold reform agenda since taking office in May. Following a period of high inflation, the convergence of the economy toward balance is creating the opportunity to focus on ambitious structural reforms to address medium-term challenges.
Delivering on the government's three main economic goals of boosting productivity, maintaining fiscal sustainability and ensuring economic resilience will help strengthen Australia's economy amid an uncertain global outlook.
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Source: imf.org
From Ports to Prices: The Inflationary Effects of Global Supply Chain Disruptions
February 13, 2026--Summary
This paper examines the inflationary effects of shipping delays. We construct a novel measure of port-to-port shipping time using real-time AIS maritime data and link it with granular port-level trade and item-level price data. We document substantial heterogeneity in goods imports across ports and regions, variation in exposure to delays, and aggregate price responses to congestion shocks.
Exploiting cross-product variations in exposure, we estimate both the average and dynamic effects of shipping delays on consumer prices, finding that a 100-hour delay raises inflation by roughly 0.5 percentage points at its five-month peak.
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Source: imf.org
New SIX White Paper: Swiss Versus US Listings
February 4, 2026-Switzerland is uniquely positioned as a listing destination, yet tech companies sometimes gravitate in their listing considerations toward the US in pursuit of higher valuations and broader perceived advantages such as investor access, liquidity, and research coverage.
To separate fact from fiction around these factors, SIX has published a new edition of the white paper ‘Evaluating the Aspects of a Swiss versus a US Listing’. The findings reveal that Switzerland's IPO credentials stack up strongly against the US.
Access to US investors does not require a US listing. A listing on SIX Swiss Exchange enables issuers to target US institutional buyers via a Rule 144A offering, which allows securities to be sold to qualified institutional buyers without needing to register with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. At the same time, Switzerland has one of Europe's largest pools of investor capital -valued at USD 207 billion- which is second only in size to the UK.
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Source: six-group.com
IMF Working Paper: Understanding China's 2024-25 Frontloading from the Lens of Product-Level Export Baskets
January 23, 2026-Summary
A striking feature of US-China trade tensions in mid-2025 is China's acceleration of exports to the US ahead of new tariff increases, a phenomenon we term export frontloading. To understand how this was achieved, we develop a factor model analytical framework to characterize China's product-level exports, across time and destinations, according to a set of latent export baskets.
Applying this to data from China's General Administration of Customs, we document the channels behind the 2024-25 episode and compare them with the 2018 US-China trade tensions. Our analysis points to broad-based adjustments across multiple dimensions in a manner not observed in 2018: (i) shipments to the US accelerated in the second half of 2024, possibly supported by the retention of intermediate inputs that facilitated a ramp-up in domestic production; (ii) from January 2025, domestic production slowed and shipments of intermediate inputs to Vietnam and other ASEAN economies accelerated, consistent with the relocation of export-oriented manufacturing following US tariffs; (iii) exporters prioritized shipments to the US through March 2025, reallocating flows away from third destinations with similar export profiles; and (iv) as shipments to the US fell sharply in April-May amid the escalation of reciprocal tariffs, the decline was offset by increased shipments to third destinations consistent with fulfilling previously deferred orders.
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Source: imf.org
IMF Working Paper: Structural Reforms in Saudi Arabia Since 2016
January 23, 2026-Summary
Since 2016, Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 reforms have improved governance, business regulations, capital markets, the labor market, and the external sector, narrowing structural gaps with frontier economies and improving economic performance.
This paper summarizes progress, estimates the output impact of the reforms, notes challenges, and highlights future priorities for continued growth and diversification.
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Source: imf.org
IMF Working Paper: Structural Reforms in Saudi Arabia Since 2016
January 23, 2026-Summary
Canada is adjusting to the largest shift in North American trade policy since
NAFTA. The economy has been more resilient than initially feared, supported by
USMCA exemptions, resilient consumption, and policy cushioning.
Nonetheless, elevated trade uncertainty has weighed on exports, investment, and confidence, reinforcing long-standing weaknesses in productivity and competitiveness.
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Source: imf.org
IMF Working Paper: From Par to Pressure: Liquidity, Redemptions, and Fire Sales with a Systemic Stablecoin
January 16, 2026-Summary
Fiat-backed stablecoins are expanding, and their issuers may attain systemic relevance as reserve portfolios grow and as they become increasingly intertwined with financial markets. This paper analyzes the resulting risks and the design choices that can mitigate them. A detailed financial-economics discussion forms the core of the paper.
It is paired with a model that captures the feedback loop between a systemic stablecoin and financial markets: redemptions deplete reserves, may prompt asset sales, depress bond market prices, thereby erode a stablecoin issuer's solvency, and in turn amplify further redemptions. The model links design dials-capital and liquidity buffers, reserve composition, redemption gates, and others-to outcomes such as run frequency, fire sale intensity, and bond market volatility. The economics discussion and model analysis conclude that robust prudential design can substantially stabilize stablecoins and their surrounding market environment.
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Source: imf.org
IMF Working Paper: Market Access and High Spread Issuances
January 16, 2026-Summary
We investigate the factors determining emerging markets' likelihood to access international capital markets. First, we develop a simple model to outline the theoretical foundations of market access, highlighting the role of risk, spreads, net worth, and the cost of repaying debt. The model also shows a trade-off between risk insurance and moral hazard and underscores the relevance of unconventional instruments such as guarantees and macro-contingent debt.
Second, we estimate a random forest model to assess the key predictors of market access. We find that outstanding obligations, reserves, short-term external debt, EMBIG spreads and the size of the economy are key predictors of market access. Important non-linear effects include an inverted U-curve for the effect of spreads on likelihood of issuance; a positive relationship between likelihood of issuance and external debt at low spreads that turns negative at high spreads; and a high sensitivity to governance only for high spreads. Finally, we collect a novel dataset and examine the characteristics of high spread issuances, which are often unconventional and include guarantees, contingencies or collateral, in line with what theory predicts.
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Source: imf.org
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