This paper reports on progress made on Nicaragua’s National Human Development Plan as of 2010. The operational goal for Nicaragua’s National Human Development Plan is economic growth with increased employment and reduced inequality and poverty. The results for 2007–10...

This 2004 Article IV Consultation states that the strength of the Tunisian economy continued in 2003, and the short-term outlook is favorable. Favorable agricultural production and robust nonenergy exports contributed to high growth and a narrowing of the external current account deficit in...

Subsidy reform has been a key component of the pre-accession reform agenda of the 10 new member states that joined the EU in 2004 (EU-10). During the pre-accession period, these countries had to undertake a number of important structural reforms in their economies. One of the most critical...

Based on stylized evidence showing variation of the Gini coefficient of income inequality across skill cohorts and on the rapid rise in trade in technology-intensive goods, the ripple effects of technology transmission and income inequality are explored in a global Computable General Equilibrium...

South Africa’s 2005 Article IV Consultation reports that the short-term outlook is broadly favorable, with the main risks arising from a possible worsening of the external environment. The authorities plan to maintain a flexible exchange rate, and to intervene in the foreign exchange...

Tunisia showed strong economic performance, low inflation, and reduced poverty owing to its sound and transparent macroeconomic policies, trade liberalization, and social policies. Executive Directors commended this development, and stressed the need to tighten monetary and fiscal policies, and...

Poverty risk is most marked for children, displaced persons and returnees, unemployed, and people with low education. Basic goals of the macroeconomic framework of the mid-term development strategy of Bosnia and Herzegovina are to reduce the overall public expenditures, lower the public debt,...

This Selected Issues paper and Statistical Appendix analyzes developments in the domestic economy of Uzbekistan. The paper highlights that after declining by 17½ percent during 1992–94, real GDP fell by only about 1 percent in 1995. The moderation in the output decline was due in part...

This paper evaluates the effects on the Bangladeshi economy of phasing out textile and clothing (T&C) quotas currently maintained by industrial countries. The planned abolition of the quotas under the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing in 2005 will alter the competitiveness of various exporting...

The paper analyzes common issues emerging from the recent experience with Fund-supported programs in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania. These comprise the initial price-overshooting and the output collapse, fiscal sustainability as well as the financial and structural...