Regional integration has been seen in Africa as a means of encouraging trade and securing economies of scale. This paper examines in detail the prospects and challenges for trade expansion in the two most prominent arrangements in eastern and southern Africa: the Common Market for Eastern and...

This paper reviews the experiences of a few countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that have succeeded in attracting fairly large amounts of foreign investment. The review indicates that sustained efforts to promote political and macroeconomic stability and implement essential structural reforms have...

Gravity factors explain a large part of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in Southeastern Europe-a region not comprehensively covered before in econometric studies-but hostcountry policies also matter. Key are policies that affect relative unit labor costs, the corporate tax burden,...

What accounts for variations in FDI flows from advanced to developing countries? How have FDI inflows explained cross-country growth experiences? In this paper we tackle both these questions empirically for a large sample of middle and low-income countries. Two key results emerge: (i) lower...

With China's accession to the WTO in 2001, Russia is by far that organization's most prominent nonmember. This paper applies the gravity model to gauge whether this "outsider" status has been affecting Russia's export structure. On the basis of cross-section and panel regressions for 1995-2002,...

The international monetary system is largely the product of negotiations during World War II between U.S. and U.K. officials, led respectively by Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes. The design of the system, especially the International Monetary Fund, reflects the U.S. plan much more...

This paper analyzes developments in the structure of trade in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) during the transition decade, and finds that it changed less than in other transition economies. Trade openness of the CIS increased between 1993 and 1997, but has fallen to a lower-level...

Against the background of Mexico's persistently high degree of inequality, this paper analyzes the country's experience with pro-poor policies over the last decade. A number of important government initiatives, implemented since the mid-1990s, have aimed at improving distributional equity...

Many Asian countries (such as China, Singapore, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, and the Philippines) will experience a significant aging of their populations during the next several decades. This paper explores how these aging Asian countries are addressing and anticipating the...

This primer aims to provide IMF macroeconomists with the essential information they need in situations where they must address issues concerning health sector policy and when they have significant macroeconomic implications. Such issues can also affect equity and growth and are fundamental to...