This paper (RE-295) evaluates the Bank's program with Ecuador from 1990 to 2002. Throughout the 1990-2002 period, Ecuador continued facing these same development challenges as in the previous one: (i) how to move the economy away from its dependency on primary production, (ii) how to improve...

The period reviewed by the current Country Program Evaluation (RE-328) covers from 2001 to 2006. It spans the Bank's latest programming cycle, which includes the end of the Carlos Flores administration, as well as the Ricardo Maduro administration. The current review's approach is to take the...

The following paper (RE-297) is a review of the Bank's experience in Bolivia from 1990 to 2002. It is produced at a time when the country is faced with a critical fiscal scenario, and in the aftermath of substantial social tensions that have led to the resignation of former President Gonzalo...

The 2000-2008 Country Program Evaluation (CPE) for Trinidad and Tobago (RE-353) was conducted by the Office of Evaluation and Oversight to inform the Board's discussion with IDB Management regarding future strategy for each country. It involved three weeks of missions to both Trinidad and...

This Country Program Evaluation (RE-262) covers the period 1990-2000. During the decade, Peru was the focal point for development assistance from both multilateral and bilateral institutions. This paper includes a description of the country context and development challenges, a diagnosis and...

Although the Latin American region's growth rates are at a three decade high, they have been historically disappointing in relative terms, which cannot be dissociated from the microeconomic environment in which firms operate. Policy makers may need to complement their focus on macroeconomic...

Why are growth rates in Latin America so disappointing? This book reviews the results of an ambitious research project to determine the binding constraints to growth, that is, the barrier whose removal would yield the greatest benefit in terms of growth. Included are case studies from seven...

Baumol (1967) showed that the rate of growth of an economy slows down if a sector has lower productivity than others and the demand between goods is inelastic. This paper points out that trade is equivalent to technological progress in the tradable sector. Therefore an open economy has higher...

This Working Paper assesses the impact on investment of a reduction in corporate taxes and the impact on employment, labor formality, and growth of a reduction in non-wage labor costs in Colombia. First, and following Hall and Jorgensen (1967), we estimate an investment function, which depends...

This paper is part of the project: "IDB's Science and Technology Programs: An Evaluation of the Technology Development Funds (TDF) and Competitive Research Grants (CRG)." This paper analyzes the role of National Research Funds in promoting scientific production in emerging economies. The...