The Bank has prepared a new set of strategies, presented in this volume, for the two overarching objectives established (Sustainable Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction and Promotion of Social Equity) and for each of the four priority areas highlighted in the Institutional Strategy...

Myrdal did not cover China in his Asian Drama. If he did, he would have been most likely pessimistic about China, as he was about other Asian countries in his book. However, China has achieved miraculous growth since the transition from a planned economy to a market economy at the end of 1978....

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...

This paper examines the macroeconomic policies and outcomes experienced by the Latin American economies during the period 1990-2010. Macroeconomic policies refer to exchange rates, monetary and aggregate fiscal policies, while macroeconomic outcomes, on the other hand, refer to the patterns of...

Since the 1970s, Chile has exhibited a highly skewed income distribution accompanied with strong fluctuations over time. Although income distribution worsened notably in the 1970s-80s, a significant improvement was recorded in the first half of the 1990s, resulting from better economic and...

We investigate the relevance of beta (β, absolute and conditional) and sigma (σ) convergence in the economies of the Common Monetary Area of Southern Africa and in the provinces of the Republic of South Africa using panel data, allowing an understanding of growth and inequality in the region....

This study uses data from Malaysia's Household Income and Expenditure Surveys to quantify the importance of different factors in accounting for the changes in Malaysia's income distribution between 1984 and 1989 ("Period 1") and between 1989 and 1997 ("Period 2"). The analysis is therefore...

What did the Latin American economies achieve in the course of a hundred years and how has this affected standards of living? This comprehensive history examines the political and economic forces that have shaped Latin America's development process.Abstract: Esta historia económica revisa las...

This study assesses poverty in the microenterprise sector in Latin America, presenting stylized facts on potential poverty risk factors at the household and individual levels. The goal of the paper is to describe the main trends in the region and the scope of the paper is limited to a...

This paper presents an integrated overview of the literature linking institutions, financial development and economic growth. From the large body of research on institutional development, the paper first selects those contributions that make it possible to study the role of institutional...