Stagnant global trade, subdued investment, and heightened policy uncertainty marked another difficult year for the world economy. A moderate recovery is expected for 2017, with receding obstacles to activity in commodity-exporting emerging market and developing economies. Weak investment is...

Global Economic Prospects 2008: Technology Diffusion in the Developing World examines the state of technology in developing countries and the pace with which it has advanced since the early 1990s. It reveals both encouraging and cautionary trends. On the one hand, the pace of technological...

International migration, the movement of people across international boundaries to improve economic opportunity, has enormous implications for growth and welfare in both origin and destination countries. An important benefit to developing countries is the receipt of remittances or transfers from...

The proliferation of regional trade agreements is fundamentally altering the world trade landscape. The number of agreements in force surpasses 200 and has risen eight-fold in two decades. Today as much as 40 percent of global trade takes place among countries that have some form of reciprocal...

The overview of the Global Economic Prospects (GEP) 2004 addresses the Doha Agenda and its effects or failures on global trade integration. The document contains commentary and analysis of international trade and its effects on developing countries and the poor populations of more developed...

Strong cyclical dynamics, together with an easing of macroeconomic policies in the United States and elsewhere, have boosted large parts of the global economy, into the initial phase of a recovery in 2002. Nonetheless, the global recovery is fragile, because investment spending is insufficient...

Realizing the promise of the new global initiatives to expand trade requires concerted effort to move development to center stage in trade policy formulation. This report is dedicated to that agenda. It begins with a review of global prospects and ways globalization links the fates of industrial...

Developing countries are now recovering from the worst ravages of the financial crisis of 1997-98. However, the recovery is both uneven and fragile, and many countries continue to struggle in the aftermath. In addition to a review of international economic developments, this report considers...

The themes of the 2006 Global Economic Prospects (GEP) are international remittances and migration, their economic consequences, and how policies can increase their role in reducing poverty. The GEP explores the gains and losses from international migration from the perspective of developing...

The world economy is experiencing a very strong but uneven recovery, with many emerging market and developing economies facing obstacles to vaccination. The global outlook remains uncertain, with major risks around the path of the pandemic and the possibility of financial stress amid large debt...