Economic and natural crises and shocks are unfortunately recurring events, but the better a country is prepared for such eventualities, the lesser the impact may be. In 2009, in the wake of the global economic crisis, the Government of Indonesia piloted a Crisis Monitoring and Response System...

After the double-dip recession, as a group the six South East European countries (SEE6)- Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia-are now making a fragile recovery. Last year the recession in the Eurozone had adverse impact on external demand and Foreign...

The Philippines economy posted robust growth in early 2010, in part due to large one-off factors. As did many countries in the region, the Philippines benefited from a strong rebound in global trade. Manufacturing and investment activity expanded briskly as a result. Private consumption...

Today's pension policies can affect retirement incomes and the public finances for decades to come. Retirement income systems that are affordable today, will often prove unsustainable in the future, given the twin pressures of demographic aging and the maturing of pension schemes. The World...

"The importance of distributional issues in policymaking creates a need for empirical tools to assess the social impact of economic shocks and policies. This paper reviews some of the modeling approaches that are currently in use at the World Bank and other international financial institutions....