This paper examines how durable goods and financial frictions shape the business cycle of a small open economy subject to shocks to trend and transitory shocks. In the data, nondurable consumption is not as volatile as income for both developed and emerging market economies. The simulation of...

This Selected Issues paper attempts to analyze the end-point problem and improve the quality of potential GDP estimates for Germany. It projects that Germany’s potential GDP growth will slow over the coming decade, mainly because of declining labor input. The paper focuses on a long-term...

This Selected Issues paper on Morocco analyzes Morocco’s growth performance over the past thirty-five years with a special focus on the more recent past. The paper presents stylized trends in growth; it first puts the overall growth performance of Morocco in an international perspective,...

This Selected Issues paper and Statistical Appendix investigates the sources of growth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and evaluates the relative importance of productivity growth and factor accumulation. The analysis is extended to the key sectors of the economy: agriculture,...

This Selected Issues paper analyzes the underlying sources of growth in Uganda, suggesting that the contribution to growth from total factor productivity has been minor, while the high population growth poses a significant challenge to sustain a rapid improvement in living standards. The paper...

This Selected Issues paper conducts a comparative analysis of the main determinants of GDP per capita growth in New Zealand and in other OECD countries to assess the relative importance of macroeconomic factors, institutional settings, and geographical location in New Zealand’s growth...

This paper investigates the determinants of trend growth and total factor productivity (TFP) growth in the Netherlands, and underscores the importance of boosting structural reforms in the Netherlands. It examines the fiscal incentives and tax deductibility. The paper summarizes recent...

This Selected Issues paper analyzes the income dispersion and comovement in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union region. It finds that incomes are diverging, with the Leeward Islands converging to a higher income level than the Windward Islands. The paper examines the macroeconomic impact of...

This Selected Issues paper for Chile describes the postcrisis recovery experience. The recovery from the 2008–2009 global crisis has been markedly different both among advanced and emerging economies. The steady improvement in the labor wedge-distortions related to the consumption leisure...

The effects on growth of the integration of an autarkic country into the world economy are analyzed, focusing on the differing roles of imitation and innovation in human capital accumulation. The country initially concentrates on imitation of foreign knowledge; subsequently, as it approaches the...