This paper reviews developments in the Italian economy during 1994 with some special attention to some specific issues. It describes trends in the real economy, with special annexes focusing on the outlook for inflation and the response of employment to cyclical and structural factors. The paper...

Aid for trade can support countries trying to further benefit from the expanding global market place by helping to address poorly performing infrastructure and institutions. Needless to say, good policies also matter: trade liberalization, improving incentives for private investment in trade,...

Despite the growing support for market-oriented strategies, and for a greater role of private investment, empirical growth models for developing countries typically make no distinction between the private and public components of investment. This paper sheds some light on this important issue by...

Despite Mexico’s recent remarkable progress in adjusting its fiscal and external accounts and in restructuring its economy, the recovery of growth has remained elusive. This paper reviews some aspects of Mexico’s recent performance and suggests that systemic adjustment uncertainty, and...

This paper shows how growth and demography, two important determinants of the savings rate in the life-cycle approach, explain a large part of the diversity in savings behavior in Asia across eight countries as well as over time. Inflation and adverse movements in the terms of trade are found to...

The turn of the century was marked by some significant and promising events for world development. The Millennium Declaration - signed by 189 countries in September 2000 - led to the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals, which set clear targets for eradicating poverty and other sources...

The global financial crisis, the most severe since the great depression, is rapidly turning into a human and development crisis. The financial crisis originated in the developed world, but it has spread quickly and inexorably to the developing world, sparing no country. Increasingly it appears...