Since the mid-1960s, Thailand's growth performance has been exceptional. Although hard hit by the external shocks fo the late 1970s and the early 1980s that proved severely destabilizing to many developing countries, Thailand showed remarkable reslience: price stability was quickly restored, and...

After a short-lived slowdown in the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis and a swift rebound, emerging markets (EM) are now entering a period of slower growth. In fact, growth is now lower than the post-crisis peak of 2010-11, as well as the rates seen in the decade before the...

Total factor productivity growth was stagnant or slowing in many advanced countries even prior to the crisis. This paper documents sector-level productivity patterns across advanced economies prior to the crisis and examines the role of product and labor market rigidities as well as innovation...

Fostering and sustaining robust economic growth is an imperative across advanced, emerging, and low-income countries alike. Countries will need to focus on supply-side reforms to raise their potential output and anchor medium-term growth prospects. This SDN will emphasize the role of structural...

This SDN discusses the specific macro-critical aspects of women’s participation in the labor market and the constraints that prevent women from developing their full economic potential. Building on earlier Fund analysis, work undertaken by other organizations and academic research, the SDN...

In this paper, the behavior of China’s imports during the period 1980-92 is studied. The estimation of cointegration and error correction mechanisms enables the separation of the long-run and short-run determinants of imports in China. The estimated cointegrating vector using Johansen’s...

Do financial sector reforms necessarily result in expansion of credit to the private sector? How does bank ownership affect the availability of credit to the private sector? Empirical evidence is somewhat mixed on these issues. We use the Indian experience with liberalization of the financial...