This paper analyzes common economic patterns across countries and economic sectors in Latin America, East Asia and Europe for the period 1970–94 by means of an error-components model that decomposes real value added growth in each country into common international effects, sector-specific...

A number of developing countries have run large and persistent current account deficits in both the late seventies/early eighties and in the early nineties, raising the issue of whether these persistent imbalances are sustainable. This paper puts forward a notion of current account...

This paper studies the relation between firm''s financing choices and financial globalization. Using an East Asian and Latin American firm-level panel for the 1980s and 1990s, we study how leverage ratios, debt maturity structure, and sources of financing change when economies are liberalized...

Output gap estimates are subject to a wide range of uncertainty owing to data revisions and the difficulty in distinguishing between cycle and trend in real time. This is important given the central role in monetary policy of assessments of economic activity relative to capacity. We show that...

We use data on the extent to which residents of one country hold the bonds of issuers resident in another as a measure of financial integration or interrelatedness, asking how Asia compares with Europe and Latin America and with the base case in which the purchaser and issuer of the bonds reside...

The purpose of this paper is to examine factors that have constrained South Africa''s growth since the end of apartheid by comparing its GDP components and its saving and investment performance with those of 10 faster-growing countries. The study finds that sluggish investment has undermined...

Covid-19 has exacerbated economic and social vulnerabilities across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). There is a risk that growth could be lower for longer, with a setback to development. Post-pandemic reforms thus become even more important, especially with constrained scope for fiscal and monetary...

This paper provides empirical evidence that the propensity for political instability in the Central African Republic (C.A.R.) has been increased by low tax revenues and deteriorations in the terms of trade. The direct effect of political instability on economic growth is not statistically...

This paper highlights selected recent developments in the economies of sub-Saharan Africa. It notes that the outlook for commodity prices has improved, and with it the outlook for economic activity beyond 1994; it also notes, however, the need for higher savings and investment to sustain growth over...

This paper surveys recent economic developments in countries in the African Department. In the aggregate, output growth continues to be sluggish, and it is expected that half of the countries will experience a declining income per capita in 1993. However, structural adjustment is making fast...