In this paper we present evidence suggesting that international migrant remittances generally lead to improved developmental outcomes. Using a cross-section of Mexican municipalities in the year 2000, we show that increases in the fraction of households receiving international remittances are...

This paper studies the effect of government-backed partial credit guarantees on firms' performance. These guarantees are automatically granted to firms without enough collateral in order to lift their credit constraints. We put together a panel, covering the period 1997-2007, that combines data...

This study looks at several major legislative actions in 2002 that will substantially affect trade negotiations with the United States, and examines the US import protection for agricultural products that will be critical in trade negotiations with Central American countries. The two important...

This paper estimates the impact of relative price volatility on sector-level investment allocation using a panel of 65 countries with data for 26 manufacturing industries over the period 1985-2003. Results indicate that volatility distorts efficient investment allocation in that investment is...

The present work summarizes a set of reports which have had the aim of diagnosing the civil service systems of seventeen countries: Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago,...

Using firm level data on 70,000 enterprises in 107 countries, this paper finds important effects of access to finance, business regulations, corruption, and to a lesser extent, infrastructure bottlenecks in explaining patterns of job creation at the firm level. The paper focuses on how the...

Economic growth is often a kind of miracle because like most miracles, it is not easy to explain. Countries that have not grown for a century, at times begin to grow at a fast pace, while countries that were growing fast stop growing. From time to time economists have advanced particular...

The paper is concerned with the high protection cum high growth experience in Brazil until the second half of the 1980s and its crisis. The paper is structured in four sections. The first section is a summary of the arguments presented in the following three sections of the paper. Section II...

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) through its Regional Policy Dialogue, Public Policy and Management Network commissioned this study [update] of the Institutional Assessment of Civil Service systems (CSS) in Barbados. While reforms address key elements of the HRM system, the frameworks,...

Este documento fue presentado en la Conferencia "MERCOSUR: En busca de una nueva agenda", realizada en la Fundación Getulio Vargas en Rio de Janeiro, en junio de 2003. Considerando la dinámica de las políticas emergentes, que apuntan a un renovado interés en profundizar la iniciativa...