The paper offers specific inputs to the debate on local content promotion in the oil industries of West Africa and Central Asia. To this end, we document the international experience with local content promotion to derive best practices in the field. We then use a case study approach to devise a...

This paper summarizes the IMF advice on the ruble area as it was presented to the national authorities in Russia, the Baltic countries, and other states of the former Soviet Union in 1991-93. In the course of doing so, the paper corrects some misperceptions that have arisen about the IMF's role....

The main lotteries individuals face during their lifetime are country and family of birth. How much consumption growth would a newborn sacrifice to avoid these lotteries? We find that he may be willing to sacrifice a large fraction, if not all, to avoid them. Critical elements for the results...

In this paper we suggest an improved methodology for comparing the intensity of trade across and within national and provincial boundaries. Earlier efforts to assess border effects for provinces or for countries without internal trade statistics made fairly arbitrary assumptions about average...

We present a stylized real model of the Chinese economy with the objective of explaining two features: (1) domestic production is highly competitive in the sense that an accumulation of capital that raises the marginal product of labor elicits increases in employment and output rather than only...

The formal launch of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) sets the global development agenda through 2030, placing significant emphasis on promoting social and environmental sustainability alongside economic growth and poverty reduction. Meeting the SDGs will require actions across a wide...