In the last few decades there has been little convergence of income levels in Latin America with those in the United States, in sharp contrast with both emerging Asia and emerging Europe. This paper argues that lack of convergence was not the result of low investment. Latin America is poorer...

Financial technology (fintech) is emerging as an innovative way to achieve financial inclusion and the broader objective of inclusive growth. Thus far, fintech in the MENAP and CCA remains below potential with limited impact on financial inclusion. This paper reviews the fintech landscape in the...

The main objective of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) is to stimulate economic growth in participating countries through increased trade, economies of scale, knowledge and technology transfer. Using a panel data over the period 1979 to 2018, this paper examines the contribution of regional...

The lack of a clear link between general economic fundamentals and export diversification indicators in the literature has fueled the believe that industrial policies are an absolute requisite to diversify exports. This paper, however, does find a strong statistical connection between horizontal...

Finance and growth emerged as a distinct field of economics during the last three decades as economists integrated the fields of finance and economic growth and then explored the ramifications of the functioning of financial systems on economic growth, income distribution, and poverty. In this...

Ukraine's economic performance has been anemic since the early 1990s. A major impediment to productivity growth has been low investment, held back by lack of strong and independent institutions. This paper aims to assess the major areas of institutional weakness in Ukraine and quantify the...

The three main financial inflows to developing countries have largely increased during the last two decades, despite the large debate in the literature regarding their effects on economic growth which is not yet clear-cut. An emerging literature investigates the dependence of their effects on...

What drove the UK productivity slowdown post-GFC, and how is the post-Covid recovery expected to differ? This paper traces the sources of TFP growth in the UK over the last two decades through the lens of a structural model of innovation, using registry data on the universe of firms. The...