Executive Directors commend Bangladesh in addressing the major challenges to growth and poverty reduction. The strategy is comprehensive and confronts the key issues impeding sustainable development and inclusive growth in Bangladesh. Implementing sound macro-financial policies, intensifying...

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 2013 Article IV Consultation highlights that Brazil’s economy is recovering gradually from the slowdown that began in mid-2011. Consumption remained resilient last year underpinned by low unemployment and broad gains in real wages, although it has slowed somewhat more recently. After...

Intuitively core inflation is understood as a measure of inflation where noisy price movements are avoided. This is typically achieved by either excluding or downplaying the importance of the most volatile items. However, some of those items show high persistence, and one certainly does not want...