While the unemployment rate in the Baltics has fallen sharply from its crisis-peaks, it remains close to double digits. This paper estimates the structural component of the jobless rate in the three Baltic countries and analyzes its causes. Our main findings are that the current still elevated...

This Selected Issues paper focuses on the Baltic model, Baltic–Nordic links, and convergence. The Baltic countries form a distinct group within a tightly integrated Nordic–Baltic region. They are following similar approaches to economic policy, broadly in line with those of...

The aim of this empirical study is to describe and provide analysis on the experience of managing capital flows in Iceland and the Baltic countries. During the build-up of the crisis, there were shortcomings in macroeconomic policies and in the policy mix, as well as in financial supervision in...

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...

Senegal's fiscal deficit and public debt have been on the rise in recent years owing partly to an ailing and inefficient oil-based energy sector. In this paper we use a two-sector, open-economy, dynamic general equilibrium model to investigate the effects of varying fiscal policy instruments one...

Rwanda is a unique case among its Sub-Saharan African peers in that it has already undergone a large scaling-up of public investment. The Rwandan government has made clear its desire to lower its reliance on foreign aid while still maintaining high public investment levels. We use the model of...