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...

This paper assesses the implications of the use of oil revenue for public investment on growth and fiscal sustainability in Cameroon. We develop a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to analyze the effects of such investment on growth and on the path of key fiscal indicators, such as...

This paper investigates the main postulations of the Ramp;D based growth models that innovation is created in the Ramp;D sectors and it enables sustainable economic growth, provided that there are constant returns to innovation in terms of Ramp;D. The analysis employs various panel data...

This paper estimates the carbon leakage rate across countries, arguably a key parameter in the international climate policy discussion including on border carbon adjustment, but which remains subject to significant uncertainty. We propose innovations along two lines. First, we exploit recently...

This paper proposes a model of endogenous economic growth and distribution explicitly incorporating social extraction and political competition, with an application to the Philippine historical experience. The major objective is to explain developments in the distribution of national income and...

Not anytime soon. Using a novel dataset covering 127 countries and spanning two centuries, we find evidence for an energy Kuznets curve, with an initial decline of energy demand at low levels of per capita income followed by stages of acceleration and then saturation at high-income levels....

Sustainable finance has become a key focus area for global investors and policy makers. Last year proved to be a breakout year for emerging markets (EMs), with sustainable debt issuance in 2021 surging to almost $200 billion. This working paper, the first comprehensive study in the literature,...

Green debt markets are rapidly growing while product design and standards are evolving. Many policymakers and investors view green debt as an important component in the policy mix to achieve the transition to a low carbon economy and ensure the pricing of climate risks. Our analysis contributes...

A favorable external environment coupled with prudent policies fostered output growth inmost of Latin America during the last decade. But, what were the drivers of this strong growthperformance from the supply side and will this momentum be sustainable in the years ahead?We address these...

The World Bank and the IMF have adopted a debt sustainability framework (DSF) to evaluate the risk of debt distress in Low Income Countries (LICs). At the core of the DSF are empirically-based thresholds for each of five different measures of the debt burden (the “debt threshold approach”...