This 2005 Article IV Consultation highlights that economic growth in Morocco has been volatile and insufficient to significantly reduce poverty and unemployment. Growth averaged 3 percent over the last decade. It has been volatile because of the dependency of agriculture on rainfalls. In 2004,...

This paper investigates the role played by total factor productivity (TFP) in the tradable and nontradable sectors of the United States, the euro area, and Japan in the emergence and evolution of today's global trade imbalances. Simulation results based on a dynamic general equilibrium model of...

This paper provides an overview of trade reform in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) since 1996 and a quantitative assessment of potential effects on trade patterns and tariff revenue of the current reform agenda. Despite evidence of significant trade complementarities within...

This paper examines the role of Japan against that of China in the exchange rate regime in East Asia in light of growing interest in forming a currency union in the region. The analysis suggests that currency unions with China tend to generate higher average welfare gains for East Asian...

This paper describes the United States recently enacted Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and assesses its quantitative impact on African exports. The AGOA expands the scope of preferential access of Africa's exports to the United States in key areas such as clothing. However, its medium...

This paper singles out the key short-term risks and medium-term challenges related to finance and convergence in emerging Europe. With the help of a general equilibrium theoretical framework, the paper identifies pragmatic directions for policymakers. While the "speed limits" to capital inflows...

This paper elaborates on a number of key principles that need to underpin a coherent and development-friendly architecture for the WTO. The key principles include enlarging the scope of WTO bargaining to include labor flows as well as capital flows; creating a structure that would provide a...

The paper analyses the potential trade impact of the forthcoming East African Community (EAC) customs union. It examines the trade linkages among the member countries of the EAC and the extent to which the introduction of the EAC common external tariff will liberalize their trade regimes. To...

This paper studies optimal monetary policy in a two-sector small open economy model under segmented asset markets and sticky prices. We solve the Ramsey problem under full commitment, and characterize the optimal monetary policy in a calibrated version of the model. The findings of the paper are...

The debate about the appropriate choice of exchange rate regime is fundamental in international economics. This paper develops a small open-economy model with balance sheet effects and compares the performance of fixed and flexible exchange rate regimes. The model is solved up to a second-order...