Despite starting as one of the poorest countries in the mid-1980s, Vietnam has achieved rapid developmental progress, reaching lower middle-income status in 2010. In line with rapid economic growth, Vietnam has achieved impressive progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) during...

The concept of purchasing power parity (PPP) is used to evaluate whether eight East Asian currencies were overvalued on the eve of the 1997 crises. The Johansen and Horvath-Watson cointegration test procedures are applied to bilateral and multilateral exchange rates, deflated using CPIs,...

This paper presents estimates of the size of the shadow economy in 76 developing, transition, and OECD countries, which are derived by combining figures from different estimation methods. We describe and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the different estimation methods. We find that the...

This paper discusses issues to be considered in designing “second generation” reforms. These reforms should focus on improving the capacity of the public sector to implement economic policies. The paper contrasts these reforms with those known as first generation reforms, which essentially...

This paper describes the growth of public spending in industrial countries over the past century. It identifies several periods: the periods between 1870 and 1913; the period between the two World Wars; the post World War II period up to 1960; and the period after 1960. Public spending started growing...

This paper focuses on the emergence of the economic agency role of government and its relationship with cooperation and economic management. It distinguishes emergence under war, domination or capitulation, perfect cooperation, and strategic bargaining. Good governance is a consequence of...

This paper discusses the role of the state from a historical perspective. It outlines how that role has changed over the past hundred years and discusses the forces that have promoted the changes. In the period between 1913 and 1980, there was a large increase in public spending in industrial...

We show empirical evidence that there may not be a tradeoff between market income inequality and high sustained growth, which is key for poverty alleviation. We argue that the economies that achieved high sustained growth and low market income inequality are characterized by dynamism-a drive...

The sizable hoarding of international reserves by several East Asian countries has been frequently attributed to a modern version of monetary mercantilism-hoarding international reserves in order to improve competitiveness. From a long-run perspective, manufacturing exporters in East Asia...