"Despite significant progress in economic reform throughout the 1990s and an exemplary development of the policymaking framework in the second part of the decade, Brazil suffered a major public debt and currency crisis in 2002. Though the political origin of the uncertainty cannot be ignored,...

This report follows up on a 2007 World Bank study, Financial Sector Integration in Two Regions of Sub-Saharan Africa: How Creating Scale in Financial Markets Can Support Growth and Development (FSITR henceforth) which identified the opportunities associated with regionalization of financial...

Following an unprecedented tightening cycle that avoided deep recession and widespread job losses, the EU economy appears poised for a "soft landing" with inflation nearing target levels. In 2023, EU growth slowed to an average of 0.4 percent amid a significant decline in trade, while employment...

Armenia has made significant progress in its development journey by improving its ability towithstand shocks and becoming an upper-middle-income country in 2018. Armenia's GDP per capita more than doubled between 2017 and 2023, to USD 8,053 (current prices) despite several shocks including the...

The Kyrgyz Republic is a small, open, and lower-middle-income country. Throughout the past two decades, the Kyrgyz authorities have substantially improved the country's fiscal stance to maintain macroeconomic stability. Notwithstanding past progress, the fiscal system of the Kyrgyz Republic...

During the last decade Cambodia succeeded in achieving significant domestic resource mobilization which in turn enabled a rapid expansion of social spending. During the next decade it should shift from spending more to spending better. This Public Finance Review (PFR) informs the next phase of...

"The recent global financial crisis has shaken the confidence of developed and developing countries alike in the very blueprint of financial and macro policies that underlie the western capitalist systems. In an effort to contain the crisis from spreading, the authorities in the US and many...