With fiscal adjustment proceeding quickly in Bulgaria and given the weak economic growth environment, there is keen interest in making the budget composition more growth friendly. This paper quantifies the short-term impact of fiscal policy on economic activity in Bulgaria using econometric and...

The impact of public education expenditure on human capital, the supply of different labor skills, and its macroeconomic and distributional consequences is appraised within a multisector CGE model. The model is applied to and calibrated for two Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs), Tanzania...

Financial inclusion has been one of the key pillars of Colombia’s development strategy for a number of years. Financial inclusion policies have aimed at channeling microcredit to poor, spreading formal banking system usage, fostering electronic payment acceptance, and making financial services...

The econometric literature has been unable to establish a robust association between foreign aid and growth and poverty reduction. In this paper we argue that aid effectiveness must be assessed using methods that go beyond cross-country regressions. We calibrate a dynamic general equilibrium...

This paper considers various dimensions and sources of gender inequality and presents policies and best practices to address these. With women accounting for fifty percent of the global population, inclusive growth can only be achieved if it promotes gender equality. Despite recent progress,...

This paper argues that sex discrimination is an inefficient practice. We model sex discrimination as the complete exclusion of females from the labor market or as the exclusion of females from managerial positions. The former implies a reduction in GDP per capita; the latter distorts the...