Going forward, Korea faces two closely related challenges: sustaining economic growth against the backdrop of a rapidly aging population and ameliorating income inequality. This paper argues that a gradual increase in social spending could promote more sustainable and inclusive growth in Korea....

While the world is focused on addressing the near-term ramifications of the COVID-19 shock, we turn attention to another important aspect of the pandemic: its fallout on medium-term potential output through scarring. Taking Australia and New Zealand as examples, we show that the pandemic will...

Debt levels, both private and public, were already at record highs before the Covid-19 pandemic, and surged further in 2020. The high indebteness raises concerns whether it will undermine future growth prospects. This paper contributes to the ongoing debate by examining what happens to economic...

Financial technology (fintech) is emerging as an innovative way to achieve financial inclusion and the broader objective of inclusive growth. Thus far, fintech in the MENAP and CCA remains below potential with limited impact on financial inclusion. This paper reviews the fintech landscape in the...

From its early post-war catch-up phase, Germany's formidable export engine has been its consistent driver of growth. But Germany has almost equally consistently run current account surpluses. Exports have powered the dynamic phases and helped emerge from stagnation. Volatile external demand, in...

Many Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, like Benin, have scaled up public investment during the last decade. Such a strategy contributed to the improvement of infrastructure, but also to a build-up of debt vulnerabilities. Looking forward, the planned fiscal consolidation will result in some...

This paper uses a multivariate filter and a production function to project potential growth inColombia, modeling in detail the impact of low oil prices on investment. The framework alsocaptures the impact of current and planned policies on potential growth, including the peaceagreement with the...

We provide a long-run perspective on neutral interest rates with new estimates for 16 advanced economies since the 1870s using the Laubach and Williams approach. Our estimates differ substantially from commonly used proxies. We find that, while cross-country heterogeneity was significant in the...

Recent literature has explored the relationship between efficiency-adjusted public capital and economic growth. A debate on whether capital grants, and especially EU funds actually contribute to growth has gained prominence lately. This paper empirically assesses the relationship between the...

This paper examines how financial development affects the sources of growth-productivity and investment-using a sample of 145 countries for the period 1960-2011. We employ a range of econometric approaches, focusing on the CCA and MENA countries. The analysis looks beyond financial depth to...