Over the past decades, workers' remittances have grown to become one of the largest sources of financial flows to developing countries, often dwarfing other widely-studied sources such as private capital and official aid flows. While it is undeniable that remittances have poverty-alleviating and...

This paper analyzes the weak growth performance in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region during 1980-2000 using an empirical model of long-run growth. The relative importance of the factors affecting growth is shown to vary across 16 MENA countries. In GCC countries, where oil revenues...

Even modest investment rates may achieve satisfactory rates of growth in the reforming economies of Eastern Europe because their relative capital scarcity implies high rates of productivity for capital. The most serious obstacle to private investment is uncertainty about the reform process,...

The view that policies directed at the real exchange rate can have an important effect on economic growth has been gaining adherents in recent years. Unlike the traditional "misalignment" view that temporary departures of the real exchange rate from its equilibrium level harm growth by...

A growing body of empirical evidence suggests that inequality-income or gender related-can impede economic growth. Using dynamic panel regressions and new time series data, this paper finds that both income and gender inequalities, including from legal gender-based restrictions, are jointly...

This paper analyzes the weak growth performance in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region during 1980-2000 using an empirical model of long-run growth. The relative importance of the factors affecting growth is shown to vary across 16 MENA countries. In GCC countries, where oil revenues...