The GCC growth model has delivered substantial improvements in living standards over several decades. Access to foreign labor has supported rapid growth in the non-oil sector and price stability in the region. It has also resulted in positive spillovers to the migrant-sending countries through...

This paper undertakes a cross-country analysis of productivity growth at both the aggregate and sectoral level. It finds that Asia''s remarkable output growth over the past 40 years reflected both high investment, and rapid productivity increases. These factors were in turn supported by the...

Since 1978 the Chinese economy has grown on average more than 9 percenta year. Per capita income has nearly quadrupled in the past 15 years andsome analysts predict that within 20 years the Chinese economy will belarger than that of the United States. This pamphlet analyzes the reasonsfor the...

Several transition countries have experienced strong real exchange rate appreciations. This paper tests the hypothesis that these appreciations reflect underlying productivity gains in the tradable sector. Using panel data over the period 1993-98, the results show clear evidence of...

This paper highlights key issues pertinent for the understanding of international effects of domestic tax policies and of international tax harmonization. The analytical framework adopts the saving-investment balance approach to the analysis of international economic interdependence focusing on...

This paper studies the impact of the level and volatility of the commodity terms of trade on economic growth, as well as on the three main growth channels: total factor productivity, physical capital accumulation, and human capital acquisition. We use the standard system GMM approach as well as...

The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and...

The output contractions during the initial transition stages in the Baltics and in Russia and the other CIS countries are examined across several dimensions, and the reliability of the available official statistics evaluated. The depth, length and breadth of the contractions are studied and set...