Remittances to India have been growing rapidly since 1991, making it one of the largest recipients of remittances. This paper analyzes the determinants of remittances to India and finds that their growth over time can be explained by the increase in migration and total earnings of the migrants....

This Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper for Nigeria highlights the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS). NEEDS gives special support to agriculture, industry, small and medium-scale enterprises, and oil and gas. Under the plan, the government will seek long-term capital...

This paper analytically explores and empirically tests a number of hypotheses to explain the rapid growth in transition economies. The paper finds that growth in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has been higher because of the recovery of lost output, progress in macroeconomic...

The transitional recession in countries of Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union has lasted much longer than expected. The legacy of the past and recent policy mistakes have both contributed to the slow progress. As structural reforms and gradual institution building have taken hold, the...

This paper reviews several methods to measure wage flexibility, and their suitability for evaluating the extent of such flexibility during times of structural change, when wage distributions and wage curves can be particularly volatile. The paper uses nonparametric estimation to capture possible...

This Selected Issues paper and Statistical Appendix examines inflation and wage dynamics in Finland. The paper discusses the data set used (quarterly data covering from 1975 to 1995) and the statistical properties of the relevant time series. It presents the model and the empirical estimates,...

This paper presents a simple framework that illustrates the link between skill-based wage differentiation and human capital acquisition given skill-biased technical progress. The analysis points to the economic costs resulting from labor market and income redistribution policies that prevent the...