While economists continue to debate whether particular economic policies, such as those referred to in Willliamson’s (1993) “Washington Consensus,” can spur growth in developing countries, this paper demonstrates that it is combinations of policies that are more critical for growth. Policy...

The Chinese government has recently focused on the need to increase consumption to rebalance the economy. A widely held view is that despite China's remarkably high growth, the share of consumption in total expenditure has been low and declining due to high and rising saving rate of Chinese...

This paper uses the standard one-sector neoclassical growth model to investigate why China's consumption has been low and investment high. It finds that the low cost of capital has been quantitatively an important factor. Theory predicts that the price of capital may have been significantly...

In the spirit of what is known as business cycle accounting, this paper finds that the investment wedge-the gap between household's rate of intertemporal substitution and the marginal product of capital-is large and quantitatively significant in explaining China's and India's growth. Specific...

China's sectoral trade composition, product quality mix, and import content of processing exports have all changed substantially during the past decade. This has rendered trade elasticities estimated using aggregate data highly unstable, with more recent data pointing to significantly higher...

This study uses the fiscal expansion and consolidation experiences of the industrial countries over the period 1970 to 1995 to examine the interplay between fiscal adjustments and economic performance. A key finding is that fiscal consolidation need not trigger an economic slowdown. Fiscal...

The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and...

The standard growth accounting framework, which weights various inputs by their factor shares to measure their contributions to output growth, is known to underestimate the contribution of inputs in the presence of externalities and increasing returns. This paper develops a model in which, in...

This paper examines the recent evolution of exchange rate policies in the developing world. It looks at why so many countries have made a transition from fixed or ""pegged"" exchange rates to ""managed floating"" currencies. It discusses how economics perform under different exchange rate...

India’s progress in reducing poverty at the national level masks substantial disparity in the incidence of poverty at the state level. This paper provides a description of the trends in interstate differences in rural poverty for the period 1978–97. Key findings are that poverty generally...