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 emphasizes the distinction between two ‘monetary approaches to the balance of payments’, one developed in the IMF, the other under the leadership of Harry Johnson in Chicago. The IMF approach is presented as an evolutionary development of the Kahn/Keynes multiplier model in an...

This paper surveys the literature on sovereign debt that deals with the issues of a country’s ability-to-pay, its willingness-to-pay, and the policy responses to the debt crisis of the 1980s. The existence of an ability-to-pay problem suggests a need for debt reduction, but plans for debt...