. Lowering interest rates and, thus, the cost of borrowing in the rand zone (Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland and South Africa) is a priority to promote investment and economic growth. . Local-currency interest rates in these countries are driven by those on rand-denominated transactions. Reducing...

Economic globalization is increasingly challenging traditional, closedeconomy intuition about linkages between demand, supply, and employment. In some parts of the world, substantial employment growth is arising from external demand while, in other areas, there is growing concern that domestic...

At the 1994 APEC summit in Bogor, Indonesia, it was recommended that trade and investment barriers among the member countries be removed by 2020. Despite general consensus that trade liberalization would accelerate development in this most dynamic trading area, there is very little empirical...

Three novel macroeconomic policy challenges are discussed in this paper: the macroeconomic implications of China’s emergence; the implications of intensifying financial integration; and the interaction of Asia’s foreign exchange regime with monetary policy in the OECD area. First, China may...

Linkages between international trade and the domestic environment are receiving intensified scrutiny by researchers and policy makers alike. This is especially the case in developing countries, where trade can be a significant agent of change and growth. While trade policies are increasingly...

Like most petroleum producing countries, Indonesia experienced a sharp deterioration in its export conditions during the early 1980s. Given the country's heavy reliance on oil taxation and relatively low per capita income, this exogenous shock seriously disrupted development plans and induced...

One of the priorities set out in the <I>Capital Flows Initiative</I> of the NEPAD is to increase private capital flows to Africa, whereby providing African economies with longterm affordable and sustainable resources to finance their development. In this respect, lower debt costs may be of utmost...</i>

This paper reports on the construction of an Input-Output table for the economy of Morocco. The table is calibrated to the year 1990 and details the interactions between 133 primary, manufacturing, and service sectors, relying on a combination of a more aggregate table estimated by the Moroccan...

The practice of environmental regulation and assessment in developing countries faces many special challenges. Apart from popular misconceptions about negative links between environmentalism and economic growth, there are numerous practical limitations to appraising environmental conditions and...

Decentralisation has been advocated by donors and development agencies as an important factor broadening citizen participation and improving local governance, thereby promoting poverty reduction from the bottom up. On the basis of a comprehensive review of 19 country case studies documented in...