The “middle-income trap” is the phenomenon of hitherto rapidly growing economies stagnating at middle-income levels and failing to graduate into the ranks of high-income countries. In this study we examine the middle-income trap as a special case of growth slowdowns, which are identified as...

The combination of stagnant growth and high levels of income inequality renewed the debate about whether a more even distribution of income can spur economic activity. This paper tests for cross-country convergence in income inequality and estimates its impact on economic growth with a...

With fiscal adjustment proceeding quickly in Bulgaria and given the weak economic growth environment, there is keen interest in making the budget composition more growth friendly. This paper quantifies the short-term impact of fiscal policy on economic activity in Bulgaria using econometric and...

Financial inclusion has been one of the key pillars of Colombia's development strategy for anumber of years. Financial inclusion policies have aimed at channeling microcredit to poor,spreading formal banking system usage, fostering electronic payment acceptance, andmaking financial services more...

Estimation and simulation of sustainable real exchange rates in some of the new EU accession countries point to potential difficulties in sustaining the ERM2 regime if entered too soon and with weak policies. According to the estimates, the Czech, Hungarian, and Polish currencies were overvalued...

This paper extends the Schumpeterian model of creative destruction by allowing followers' cost of innovation to increase in their technological distance from the leader. This assumption is motivated by the observation the more technologically advanced the leader is, the harder it is for a...

The paper discusses the impact and implications of Korean unification by setting up a two-region endogenous growth model. The numerical solutions are based on the formal analytical model, and have been calibrated so that they reflect the observed features of the North and South Korean economies....

This paper studies the impact on growth, welfare, and government debt of fiscal reform packages in a theoretical model drawing together three key features of the endogenous growth literature: (i) investment in technology (in the form of human capital) offsets diminishing marginal productivity of...