The Fund's existing facilities for low-income countries (LICs) provide a vehicle for the speedy provision of financial assistance to member countries hit by natural disasters, either through the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) or through augmentation of the funding already being provided through...

This paper sets forth the proposed decisions and related legal instruments that are needed to implement the transformation of the the Post-Catastrophe Debt Relief Trust (the 'PCDR Trust') into the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (the 'CCR Trust' or 'Trust'), as described in the Proposal...

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...

Many countries around the globe, particularly the systemic advanced economies, face the challenge of closing output gaps and raising potential output growth. Addressing these challenges requires a package of macroeconomic, financial and structural policies that will boost both aggregate demand...

Five years after the global financial crisis, the severe tensions and risks rooted last year in some of the 'Systemic five' (S5)-China, euro area, Japan, United Kingdom, United States--have abated but all five are still operating below potential, id est, they are not contributing to global...

Spillover reports examine the external effects of domestic policies in five systemic economies (S5), comprising China, the Euro Area, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The report aims to provide an added perspective to the policy line developed in the Article IV discussions with...

Global spillovers have entered a new phase. With crisis-related spillovers and risks fading, changing growth patterns are the main source of spillovers in the global economy at this juncture. Two key trends are highly relevant here. First, signs of self-sustaining recovery in some advanced...

This paper describes how economic behavior in the market for health care in the United States is influenced by a range of impediments to the functioning of the price mechanism which impart an upward bias to health care costs and imply efficiency losses. The paper also considers how to reform the...

The past century has been marked by rapid advances in human welfare. People in most parts of the world are healthier and are living longer. While this trend is likely to continue, hopes are fading in some regions where progress slowed or stopped in the1990s, primarily as a result of the AIDS...

Using data for a sample of developing and transition countries, this paper estimates the relationship between government spending on health care and education, and social indicators. Unlike previous studies, where social indicators are used as proxies for the unobservable health and education...