This paper reports on progress made on Nicaragua’s National Human Development Plan as of 2010. The operational goal for Nicaragua’s National Human Development Plan is economic growth with increased employment and reduced inequality and poverty. The results for 2007–10...

This Selected Issues paper for Algeria analyzes the potential economic impact of Algeria’s Association Agreement with the European Union (AAEU). The paper lays out the major elements of Algeria’s AAEU and makes a comparison with other AAEUs. It discusses the potential economic...

The Euro Area Policies’ 2007 Article IV Consultation reports that the economy is poised for a sustained upswing because of cyclical considerations and policies, which have had a forward-looking cast. The area’s external position and the real effective exchange rate of the euro are...

We study the performance of the four Western Hemisphere trading blocs during the period 1978-2001. For the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), trade integration outweighed trade diversion; for MERCOSUR, increased integration and trade diversion went hand in hand; for the Central American...

This survey of the recent literature asks: how important is trade policy for poverty reduction? We consider the effects of openness on poverty in two components: the effect of openness on average income growth, and the effect on distribution for a given growth rate. Evidence from a variety of...

This paper investigates whether a regional bloc would enlarge or remain stagnant in size using a model where enlargement is the endogenous outcome of the interaction between the supply of and demand for membership. We show that a maximum size of the bloc exists beyond which the regional...

Trade theories covering Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) are as diverse as the literature in search of their empirical support. To account for the model uncertainty that surrounds the validity of the competing PTA theories, we introduce Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) to the PTA literature....

Germany's export market share increased since 2000, while most industrial countries experienced declines. This study explores four explanations and evaluates their empirical contributions: (i) improved cost competitiveness, (ii) ties to fast growing trading partners, (iii) increased demand for...

This paper documents the expanding economic linkages between low-income countries (LICs) and a narrow group of "Emerging Market leaders" that have become major players in regional and global trade and financial flows. VAR models show that these linkages have increased the share of growth...

This study investigates the role of India's economy in explaining the observed growth in South Asia, taking into consideration other sources of growth endogenous to the countries in the region. Since a review of key variables indicates that India's bilateral trade and financial linkages with...