Chile’s average economic growth between 1990 and 1998 was above 7 percent per year, more than double than in previous decades, and higher than in any other Latin American country in the same period. This paper assesses empirically the main hypotheses suggested in the literature about the...

Most estimates of Indian manufacturing productivity find a slowdown in the 1990s. This has puzzled analysts, given that 1990s reforms were deeper and wider than the 1980s reforms that raised the growth rate of the Indian economy by 2 per cent points. This paper tests the hypothesis of the J...

This paper studies the main determinants of total factor productivity (TFP) growth using principal component analysis and a dynamic panel data model and, through a case study, explores key areas where accelerated reforms in the Maghreb countries would boost TFP gains. The results reveal that...

This paper undertakes a cross-country analysis of productivity growth at both the aggregate and sectoral level. It finds that Asia's remarkable output growth over the past 40 years reflected both high investment, and rapid productivity increases. These factors were in turn supported by the...

This paper studies structural changes underlying China's remarkable and unprecedented growth in recent years. While patterns of structural transformation across China's provinces are broadly in line with international experience, one important difference is in labor productivity differentials...

This paper analyzes the factors behind the recent growth of India's services sector. The high growth of services output in the 1990s was mostly due to the rapid expansion of communication, banking, business services (including the IT sector) and community services. While factors such as a high...

This paper proposes an integrated and risk-based approach to the sequencing and coordination of reforms to develop domestic financial markets. The paper argues that there is a hierarchy of financial markets that reflects the complexity of risks in each market and the interlinkages among markets....

This paper uses a dynamic general equilibrium model calibrated to Ugandan data to examine the welfare effects of alternative scenarios of government expenditure and tax financing. Two expenditure types are considered: social spending that affects human capital, and infrastructure expenditures...

This paper examines the macroeconomic effects of different timing and composition of fiscal adjustment in the United Kingdom using the IMF’s Global Fiscal Model. Early consolidation dampens aggregate demand in the short term, but increases output in the long term as smaller primary...

Tariffs and other policy distortions typically lower real national income relative to what it otherwise would have been for any given rate of factor accumulation. Even while lowering real income, however, policy distortions may raise an economy's real measured growth rate and so, somewhat...