This paper analyzes the implications of global rebalancing in the post-crisis period for Korea and how high leverage in the household and SMEs sectors could affect this process. The first section of the paper discusses implications of global rebalancing for Korea using simulations from the...

This Second Progress Report on Tajikistan’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) discusses key developments in the status and dynamics of poverty-related indicators in the country during 2004. Although economic growth has generated significant reductions in poverty rates in the past...

This Selected Issues paper analyzes the growth prospects of the Greek economy. It is estimated that exceptional factors boosted growth by 1 percentage point per year in recent years and, under current trends and policies, growth is likely to drop to about 3 percent by the end of the decade. The...

This paper reviews Mongolia’s Economic Growth Support Poverty Reduction Strategy (EGSPRS) Implementation Progress Report 2004. Mongolia’s GDP grew by 5.6 percent in 2003, a fulfillment of the goal set out in the Main Guidelines for Economic and Social Development in 2003 to attain...

This Selected Issues paper for Indonesia reports that following the major cleanup of the banking sector after the crisis, banks’ performance has improved as net interest margins and profitability have increased. Public and external debt ratios have declined and international reserves have...

This Selected Issues paper on Portugal reviews the considerations regarding productivity slowdown. The favorable evolution of income growth from the 1970s to the mid-1990s in Portugal was associated with above-average productivity growth but also reflected a more moderate decline in the amount...

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 paper estimates potential output and the output gap for Slovakia which enjoyed rapid growth with few signs of economic overheating in recent years. It applies two broad sets of approaches: conventional methods, represented by a statistical method and a production function approach; and a...