The liberalization of foreign trade and capital movements, or what is commonly termed opening up the economy, is a subject of increasing interest to developing countries, including many in Latin America. While the longer-run costs and benefits of such a strategy may be well known, there has been...

There is surprisingly little empirical research on whether Balassa-Samuelson effects can explain the long-run behavior of real exchange rates in developing countries. This paper presents new evidence on this issue based on a panel-data sample of 16 developing countries. The paper finds that the...

There is surprisingly little empirical research on whether Balassa-Samuelson effects can explain the long-run behavior of real exchange rates in developing countries. This paper presents new evidence on this issue based on a panel-data sample of 16 developing countries. The paper finds that the...

The conventional growth-accounting approach to estimating the sources of economic growth requires unrealistically strong assumptions about either competitiveness of factor markets or the form of the underlying aggregate production function. This paper outlines a new approach utilizing...

The conventional growth-accounting approach to estimating the sources of economic growth requires unrealistically strong assumptions about either competitiveness of factor markets or the form of the underlying aggregate production function. This paper outlines a new approach utilizing...

Staff Papers has, since its inception in 1950, been an important vehicle for the dissemination of research done by staff of the IMF. The paper discusses three areas in which articles published in Staff Papers up until the 1970s made major contributions to the literature in international...

The behavior of private investment in developing countries has obvious implications, both for long-term development and for the design of shorter-term stabilization programs. What determines the rate of private investment and how this rate responds to changes in government policies are questions...

Given the widespread interest in the balance of payments problems of non-oil developing countries during the 1970s, the lack of systematic empirical work on the reasons for these problems is somewhat surprising. This paper pursues this issue through an examination of the quantitative...

This paper reviews Romania's experience with interenterprise arrears during 1991 with the purpose of extracting lessons that might prove useful for other economies in transition to market-based systems. The rapid growth of interenterprise arrears poses a serious policy problem in many of the...