This presentation was prepared for an IDB Seminar titled "Brainstorming Session: The Political Economy of Productivity: Actors, Arenas, and Policymaking," held on February 6th, 2009. This research project lies at the intersection of two agendas: 1) 2010 Development in the Americas Report (DIA,...

Most estimates of Indian manufacturing productivity find a slowdown in the 1990s. This has puzzled analysts, given that 1990s reforms were deeper and wider than the 1980s reforms that raised the growth rate of the Indian economy by 2 per cent points. This paper tests the hypothesis of the J...

Stabilization policies frequently aim to boost spending as a means to increase GDP. Spending does not necessarily translate into production, however, especially when inventories are involved. We look at the “cash-for-clunkers” program that helped finance the purchase of nearly 700,000...