Congo's vital dependence on trade for development stands in contradiction with its trade policy. As a member of the CEMAC, Congo's tariff scheme at least formally is guided by CEMAC's 1994 trade regime agreement. This paper shows CEMAC's customs code is restrictive relative to that of comparable...

We examine the effect of tariff policies on evasion of customs duties, in the context of the trade reform in India of the 1990s. We exploit the variation in tariff rates across time and products to identify the evasion elasticity, namely, the effect of tariffs on evasion, and relate this...

This paper reviews economic developments in the Republic of Mozambique during 1990–96. Under the Economic and Social Rehabilitation Program (ESRP), the economy has made impressive economic gains. Real GDP growth averaged 6.7 percent in 1987–95, despite the civil war, a decline in...

This paper on recent developments and regional policy issues in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) discusses the recent development and trends in economic integration. Trade restrictions and an uneven application of CEMAC rules constrain external and intraregional trade....

This paper examines the potential advantages and disadvantages of adopting a common currency arrangement among the six IMF member Pacific island countries that have their own national currency. These countries are Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu. The study...

This Selected Issues paper for Algeria analyzes the growth prospects of the Algerian economy. Drawing on the findings of the empirical growth literature, the paper combines growth accounting and cross-country growth regressions to examine the role of macroeconomic and institutional factors in...

The paper focuses on systemically important jurisdictions in the global trade network, complementing recent IMF work on systemically important financial sectors. Using the IMF's Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS) database and network analysis, the paper develops a framework for ranking...

Empirical evidence on the relationship between democracy and economic reforms is limited to few reforms, countries, and years. This paper studies the impact of democracy on the adoption of economic reforms using a new dataset on reforms in the financial, capital and banking sectors, product...

This paper develops a structural macroeconometric model of the world economy, disaggregated into thirty five national economies. This panel unobserved components model encompasses an approximate linear panel dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model featuring a monetary transmission...

This paper presents the primary institutions and economic policies that have led to Chile’s remarkable record of stability and growth over the past twenty years. The core of this policy stance is the combination of fiscal discipline and an open trade policy regime, together with carefully...