Many arguments that have been advanced in favor of maintaining capital controls within the EC have not paid sufficient attention to the welfare consequences of this type of market intervention. Our paper provides a simple, optimizing framework in which the welfare consequences of capital...

In designing policy measures, including possible social safety nets, targeted to the poor, it is important to fully understand the efficiency implications of these measures. There is abundant macroeconomic literature on their negative effects on the poor’s work effort. The literature, however,...

This Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper for the Kingdom of Lesotho presents a determined plan in pursuance of high and sustainable equity-based economic growth. It contains medium-term objectives and strategies to address the major challenges facing the country. These challenges include employment...

The Welfare Improvement Strategy (WIS) of Uzbekistan has the objective of improving living standards of its people with the help of strong economic policies for all priority areas of development. The report reviews economic and social policies and assesses the living standards of its people. It...

This Selected Issues paper on Portugal reviews the considerations regarding productivity slowdown. The favorable evolution of income growth from the 1970s to the mid-1990s in Portugal was associated with above-average productivity growth but also reflected a more moderate decline in the amount...

Belgium has effected a remarkable fiscal adjustment, best illustrated by the decline in its public debt. While benefiting from an appreciable decline in interest rates, most of the underlying consolidation reflected a considerable increase in the tax burden, one of the highest in the...

Based on the economic literature, various policy measures and institutions in the product and labor markets that increase growth and employment are studied. From a cross-country approach, this study finds a significant relationship between Vertical Fiscal Imbalances (VFIs) and fiscal performance...

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...

Increased globalization - the international integration of markets forgoods, technology, labor, and capital - has coincided in the past 20years with a shift in demand from less-skilled workers to those with moreskills. Have imports from developing countries been responsible for thelowered wages...