This paper studies structural changes underlying China's remarkable and unprecedented growth in recent years. While patterns of structural transformation across China's provinces are broadly in line with international experience, one important difference is in labor productivity differentials...

Since 1987, Ireland has developed five "social partnership" agreements, with the latest launched in February 2000 called the "Program for Prosperity and Fairness"1. This program outlines a comprehensive set of economic and social objectives finalized over extensive consultations among the...

For the past six years, the State of Andhra Pradesh in India has been at the vanguard of efforts to modernize the economy and the state while pursuing policies to improve the lives of the poorest. The Chief Minister and head of the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Mr. Chandra Babu Naidu, is...

1992 was both a year of bitterness and hope. A decade of civil war had devastated the country but left no clear winner or loser; it was time to try peace. The governing ARENA party and the FMLN rebels signed peace accords requiring the demobilization of the FMLN and its incorporation into the...

In January 1999, Poland launched a new pension system that was the result of 5-6 years of broad outreach campaigns and complex negotiations within the government and between the government and key stakeholder groups. A number of compromises were made to broaden support for the reform; these...

This paper looks at the empirical record whether big infrastructure and public capital drives have succeeded in accelerating economic growth in low-income countries. It looks at big long-lasting drives in public capital spending, as these were arguably clear and exogenous policy decisions. On...

Effective public investment requires governments to address the "recurrent cost problem" to ensure operations and maintenance (O&M) expenditures are sufficient to sustain the flow of productive public capital services to private factors of production. Building on the model of Buffie et al...

Following very strong growth during the period 2000–12, emerging market economies (EMEs) experienced a slowdown in the last couple of years. This paper examines the supply-side drivers of the strong growth performance of 63 EMEs and investigates if the recent slowdown in growth is...

In this paper, we study the optimal mix of monetary and macroprudential policies in an estimated two-country model of the euro area. The model includes real, nominal and financial frictions, and hence both monetary and macroprudential policy can play a role. We find that the introduction of a...

This paper documents the recent slowdown in investment in India and explores its underlying causes. The sharp investment deceleration has sparked an intense debate about the role of interest rates, as well as business confidence and economic policy uncertainty. Our results suggest that while...