We discuss regional disparities in economic performance and living standards. We first set out some key facts, and provide a conceptual framework to help analyze whether such disparities are efficient, or instead reflect market and/or policy failures. We examine whether policy attempts to reduce...

The pervasive use of tax incentives is costly for the Caribbean countries, yet the benefits seem limited. Better policy coordination at the regional level is needed to help overcome the collective action problems and generate more revenue to support the much-needed infrastructure investment....

Sound regional policies are essential for balanced and sustained economic growth. The interaction of federal and regional policies with cross-regional structural differences affect human and physical capital formation, the business climate, private investment, market depth, and competition. This...

This paper investigates income redistribution and risk sharing among Italy’s regions and the implications for public policy. Using a richer data set than in previous works, this study allows for an assessment of public consumption’s and investment’s roles. The findings suggest that...

This paper examines the effect of international trade on corporate market power in emerging market economies and developing countries, with a special focus on sub-Saharan Africa. The analysis is based on a large firm-level dataset, tariff data by sector and agreggate indicators of international...

This paper contributes to the literature by introducing the role of geographic concentration of the source of remittances. Specifically, using data over 2010-2015 for 72 developing countries, we study the impact of (i) large remittances and (ii) the geographic concentration of the source of...

Over the past seven years, the DIG and DIGNAR models have complemented the IMF and World Bank debt sustainability framework (DSF) analysis, over 65 country applications. They have provided useful insights in the context of program and surveillance work, based on qualitative and quantitative...

This paper estimates the causal effect of fiscal rules on political budget cycles in a sample of 67 developing countries over the period 1985-2007. We exploit the geographical pattern in the adoption of fiscal rules to isolate an exogenous source of variation in the adoption of national fiscal...