This paper seeks to elucidate the debate over currency union in Africa. The paper examines whether empirical investigation points to the gradual emergence of currency blocs. Based on the historical data on inflation, trade, and the comovements of prices and outputs, I argue that the emergence of...

The key policy challenge for Turkey in the years ahead will be to enhance and consolidate the advances made since the nation’s 2000-01 economic crisis. Higher growth could reduce unemployment and raise living standards toward European Union levels. This paper reviews Turkey’s...

This paper uses firm-level data to examine the performance of India's nonfinancial corporate sector since 1989 and evaluate its financial vulnerabilities. While promising trends in liquidity, profitability, and leverage of the sector emerged in the early 1990s, they experienced a reversal after...

Aid is primarily given to governments whereas the engine of sustained growth is the private sector. It is therefore illusory to investigate the impact of aid on growth without considering the impact of government interventions on the private sector. The model shows how these interventions...

This paper studies international financial integration analyzing firms from various countries raising capital, trading equity, and/or cross-listing in major world stock markets. Using a large sample of 39,517 firms from 111 countries covering the period 1989-2000, we find that, although...

This paper develops a growth model with specialized goods where inefficient and corrupt bureaucracies interact with the provision of public investment services in affecting the productivity of private capital, specialization, and growth. The model provides potential explanations for the...

This Joint Staff Assessment assesses the Economic Growth Support and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EGSPRS), which is the first full poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP) prepared by the government of Mongolia. The EGSPRS builds on the strategy articulated in the interim report (I-PRSP) presented...

We investigate the nexus of public and private investment and assess the impact of both types of investment on growth. Using annual data for 1965-2005, we employ a coherent set of structural VAR outputs to model investment and growth in Benin. We find that in addition to institutional and...

Institutional transparency makes future contingencies more easily predictable for investors. Greater transparency can be achieved through vertical and horizontal integration of policy rules, which may result in lower Knightian uncertainty (ambiguity). In a model based on cumulative prospect...

The paper relies on a rich firm-level data set on transition economies to examine the role of informality as an important channel through which regulatory and other policy constraints affect firm growth. We find that firms reduce their formal operations with a higher tax and regulatory burden,...