Zsoka Koczan

Fiscal policies have been central for providing emergency lifelines to people and firms during the COVID-19 pandemic, and are also at the forefront of facilitating a recovery once the lockdown ends. This online event will focus on how policy makers can support fast and sustainable recovery. It will also consider the role of the "other government": state-owned enterprises and public banks in supporting the recovery, drawing on the latest IMF Fiscal Monitor.

By Zsóka Kóczán, Victoria Marino and Alexander Plekhanov This paper relies on a novel dataset of more than 31,000 industrial policies in 150 economies over the period 2009-2022 to codify and examine the stated objectives of these policies and their characteristics. We find that industrial policies increasingly pursue multiple objectives, often ones that may be hard to reconcile.

Jobs are the surest path out of poverty, but not all jobs are the same. “Good jobs” provide not only income but also stability, security, and benefits that enhance well-being and strengthen communities. These distinctions became evident in the latest Life in Transition Survey (LiTS) conducted by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in collaboration with the World Bank.