The three-point VAT increase is part of a package in which unemployment payroll taxes will be reduced. Risks to the recovery are balanced but the range of forecasts for 2007 is unusually wide. The priority for Germany is to transmit its external strength to the domestic economy, thus further...

Bhutan has evolved from a closed economy to a trading nation that exhibits a high degree of dependence on trade. Exports have grown rapidly but overall the country’s trade deficit continues to widen owing to an even faster growth in the value of imports. The manufacturing and industry...

Rwanda’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy provides a medium-term framework for achieving the country’s long-term development goals and aspirations as embodied in Rwanda Vision 2020, the seven-year Government of Rwanda programme, and the Millennium Development...

Countries where social and political institutions stimulate interpersonal trust, civic cooperation, and social cohesiveness tend to have more efficient governments, better governance systems, and faster growth. This paper provides cross-country evidence, based on a sample of developing and...

This Selected Issues Paper for the Republic of Congo discusses economic development and policies. Domestic prices of refined petroleum products are administratively set by the authorities below import parity. Non-oil revenue in 2007 has remained about 20 percent of non-oil GDP, compared with...

We introduce non-tradable goods to the Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson (HOS) model to study the distributive effects of terms of trade shocks. We show that the employment of resources in activities producing exclusively for the local market induces a crucial association between domestic spending and...

This Selected Issues paper discusses several features of the Slovene economy that may explain the weak relationship between credit and domestic demand growth. It reviews credit growth developments in Slovenia and in selected European Union new member states, and compares their experiences with...

Uruguay's performance under the Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) has been favorable, and commendable progress has been achieved in containing the crisis and stabilizing the economy. Executive Directors welcomed this development, and stressed the need to implement policies in the fiscal, banking, and...