We explore the role of business services in knowledge accumulation and growth and the determinants of knowledge diffusion including the role of distance. A continuous-time model is estimated on several European countries, Japan, and the United States. Policy simulations illustrate the benefits...

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...

In early 2008, the Fund launched ambitious reforms to enhance its ability to deliver the economic and financial analysis, member support, and multilateral collaboration essential to promote global stability. The reform agenda called for: (i) stronger surveillance through sharpened multilateral...

This paper reviews economic developments in the United States during 1992–96. The paper briefly describes improvements in the national income and product accounts (NIPA) and some of their implications for the analysis of long-term trends in U.S. investment and saving. The paper highlights that...

This Selected Issues paper on the United States analyzes the measures of potential output, natural rate of unemployment, and capacity utilization. Traditionally, measures of resource utilization have been used as indicators for the potential build-up of inflation pressures, and hence as guides...

This Selected Issues paper on the United States analyzes problems in the measurement of output and prices. The paper examines income versus expenditure measures of national output. Sources of consumer price index and findings of the Boskin Commission are discussed, and mismeasurement of output...

This 1999 Article IV Consultation highlights that the U.S. real GDP grew by 3.9 percent in 1998, reflecting buoyant consumption and investment spending. In the first quarter of 1999, real GDP grew by 4.3 percent (annual rate) before slowing to 2.3 percent in the second quarter. Consumption has...