Trade among the CMEA countries will soon be conducted at world prices and in convertible currencies. These are crucial steps in economic reform but will worsen Eastern Europe’s terms of trade and drive it into current account deficit with the USSR. Proposals have been made for a payments...

The transition from a command to a market economy requires profound reforms of the tax system. Such a transition will put downward pressures on the level of taxation at a time when public expenditure remains high. This paper outlines the main characteristics of the tax systems in...

This paper reviews the main features of market-oriented foreign trade reforms in planned economies. It considers reform initiatives aimed at expanding enterprise autonomy and breaking up the state monopoly of foreign trade, modifying the exchange rate system, and reforming the domestic price...

This paper analyzes budgetary subsidy policy issues that arise when centrally planned economies move toward a market economy. The analysis suggests that subsidy reduction, to be successful, has to be embedded into an overall economic reform program and that during the program’s execution,...

The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and...

This paper highlights key issues pertinent for the understanding of international effects of domestic tax policies and of international tax harmonization. The analytical framework adopts the saving-investment balance approach to the analysis of international economic interdependence focusing on...

We test the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth in a cross-country regression framework, utilizing data on FDI flows from industrial countries to 69 developing countries over the last two decades. Our results suggest that FDI is an important vehicle for the transfer of...

We examine the extent to which developing countries that do little, if any, research and development themselves benefit from R&D that is performed in the industrial countries. By trading with an industrial country that has a large “stock of knowledge” from its cumulative R&D activities, a...

How much do firms benefit from foreign R and D and through what channel? We construct a global network of corporate innovation using more than 1.5 million patents granted to firms in OECD countries. We test the 'international technology sourcing' hypothesis that foreign innovation activities tap...