Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have faced extraordinary challenges over the last three years that reverted the social gains of the previous two decades. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in severe health impacts and a reversal in many of its socioeconomic gains. The unprecedented disruption...

"Lopez-de-Silanes examines the theoretical and empirical literature pertaining to securities laws and their enforcement by regulators and courts to establish what is known and what is yet unclear. Recent empirical research in the field has established that law matters. Mandatory disclosure...

Lao PDR's real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth will remain robust in 2011 with projected growth of 8.6 percent compared to 8.4 percent in 2010. Natural resources and manufacturing sectors are expected to drive growth this year. The expected growth in the garment exports (by about 15-20...

"Are natural resources a blessing or a curse? Bravo-Ortega and De Gregorio present a model in which natural resources have a positive effect on the level of income and a negative effect on its growth rate. The positive and permanent effect on income implies a welfare gain. There is a growth...

"Loayza and Rancire study the apparent contradiction between two strands of the literature on the effects of financial intermediation on economic activity. On the one hand, the empirical growth literature finds a positive effect of financial depth as measured by, for instance, private domestic...

"The idea that developing countries face a trade-off between poverty and inequality has had considerable influence on thinking about development policy. The experience of developing countries in the 1990s does not, however, reveal any sign of a systematic trade-off between measures of absolute...