Anglophone African countries have been implementing reform and modernization initiatives in their Customs administrations. This paper outlines the progression of key reform and modernization initiatives in these countries since the early 1990s, and assesses the gap between these reforms and...

Most estimates of Indian manufacturing productivity find a slowdown in the 1990s. This has puzzled analysts, given that 1990s reforms were deeper and wider than the 1980s reforms that raised the growth rate of the Indian economy by 2 per cent points. This paper tests the hypothesis of the J...

The study looks at the cyclical behavior of the markups and assesses its impact on inflation dynamics. The analysis finds that the aggregate level of the private sector's markup is relatively high, thus pointing to the lack of strong competition in South Africa's product markets. Additionally,...

The study analyses the global trends in trade in raw jute and jute goods (export and import) over the past years, particularly focusing on the Bangladesh performance; captures the changes in both sourcing and destination; analyses the state of competition and competitiveness environment, major...

This chapter focuses on the role of corporate financial strategies to improve firms’ market valuations, and thus lower their cost of capital. The identification of successful strategies is accomplished within an overall strategic framework and related to how the firm perceives the degree of...

This paper uses a panel of 23 emerging markets for the period 1965?2008 to study the determinants of per capita GDP growth in the Philippines. The Philippines is an outlier in terms of agricultural exports, investment, research and development, population growth, and political uncertainty. Panel...

This paper uses a range of different methodologies to estimate the equilibrium real exchange rate in Armenia with both single-country and panel estimation techniques. We estimate a country specific autoregressive distributed lag model and then proceed with the estimation of a cointegrated panel...

This paper examines the development of the business model thus far and considers options for the future. The development of San Marino’s financial system over the past two decades is outlined. San Marino’s financial sector focuses on services to its residents and the residents of...

Member countries of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community are recovering from the global financial crisis, although growth in 2011 has not returned to precrisis levels. Executive Directors welcomed the region’s economic recovery from the global financial crisis and its...

The progress made by Moldova toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has not been uniform since 2007. Domestic economic and political crises are likely to undermine the achievement of several MDG targets set for 2010 and 2015. The goals were to reduce extreme poverty and hunger,...