This note is on Korea’s transition to a knowledge-based economy, the prospects and challenges ahead, and the development of its financial sector. Assessment of recent government initiatives to develop capital markets has been presented. The note discusses restrictions on Chaebol ownership...

In the literature on exports and investment, most productive firms are seen to invest abroad. In the Helpman et al. (2004) model, costs of transportation play a critical role in the decision about whether to serve foreign customers by exporting, or by producing abroad. We consider the case of...

What accounts for variations in FDI flows from advanced to developing countries? How have FDI inflows explained cross-country growth experiences? In this paper we tackle both these questions empirically for a large sample of middle and low-income countries. Two key results emerge: (i) lower...

Trade integration can play a much larger role in boosting shared prosperity. The current focus on trade tensions threatens to obscure the great untapped benefits possible from further trade reform. The opportunities provided by information technology and other fundamental changes in the global...

Rwanda’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy provides a medium-term framework for achieving the country’s long-term development goals and aspirations as embodied in Rwanda Vision 2020, the seven-year Government of Rwanda programme, and the Millennium Development...

This paper describes the Kingdom of Lesotho’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper and National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) 2012/13–2016/17. NSDP recognizes, as a point of departure, the need and urgency for Lesotho to radically transform its economy. To achieve the National...

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...

This Selected Issues paper and Statistical Appendix reviews Mozambique’s impressive economic growth, its composition, and its impact on poverty reduction over the past decade. The paper highlights that improvements in total factor productivity, resulting from a stable macroeconomic...