The author's model demonstrates that when imports are predominantly intermediate inputs - as they are in most developing countries - import restrictions can not always be relied upon to improve the trade balance. Such restrictions act as a supply shock to the economy. Unless nontraded goods are...

The author of this report provides cross-country empirical evidence on the relationship between trade and macroeconomic policy and economic growth. He finds that countries following sustainable strategies perform better than those following unsustainable strategies. Indeed, unsustainable...

In the standard Heckscher-Ohlin model, trade and migration are substitutes (that is, migration decreases with trade liberalization). The authors add four factors to the standard Heckscher-Ohlin model: labor skill levels (skilled or unskilled), international labor mobility, migration costs, and...

Broad comparisons show that growth is linked to imports, but country coomparisons over short periods show the link to be more flexible than fixed. In these stringent times, the big question for African countries is whether they can reduce their historically high import dependence? Or put...

This paper brings together the literatures on the political economy of public expenditures and the determinants of economic growth. Based on a new dataset of rural public expenditures in a panel of Latin American economies, the econometric evidence suggests that non-social subsidies reduce...

Empirical evidence suggests that the higher-order effects of natural disasters, which affect intangible assets, may be even more important than the material inter-industry effects. However, most existing general equilibrium models ignore higher order effects concerning human capital. Moreover,...

The authors report the results of a study of Mexican farm households using 1991 survey data and a smaller resurvey of some of the same households in 1993. One study goal was to empirically examine the relationship between assets and the output supply function. Using a production model focusing...

The main objective of this paper was to measure the importance of labor market distortions in explaining the marked tendency to real exchange rate overvaluation and the relatively low effectiveness of devaluation in Latin America. The main finding is that distortions in the formal labor market...

The provision of public goods and the amelioration of market failure are the classical justifications for government intervention in the economy. In reality, (1) governments intervene in markets that are not affected by failure, and (2) a large share of the government resources is spent in...

No country has achieved sustained economic development without substantially investing in human capital. Previous studies have shown the handsome returns to various forms of basic education, research, training, learning-by-doing, and capacity-building. But education by itself does not guarantee...