Most low-income countries export mainly unprocessed commodities. Yet, in their pursuit of structural transformation, they also seek a more diversified economic structure, including developing a strong manufacturing sector to create jobs and spur innovation as in more advanced economies. What is...

The Asia-Pacific region has long been prone to volatile capital flows that have posed a challenge for authorities to cope with and occasionally led to payment difficulties dragging down exchange rates and spilling over to the real economy. The recent global crisis repeated past history, although...

This paper looks at the incidence of fiscal policy on the income distribution for Chile and Mexico. Notably by broadening the income concept to account for in-kind benefits and taxes, this paper provides a full picture of the effect of fiscal policy on reducing income inequality. The contrast...

A stronger macroeconomic position when the financial crisis erupted allowed Latin American economies to mitigate its impact through fiscal expansions, reversing the characteristic procyclical behaviour of fiscal policy. At the same time, in the last two decades fiscal rules have been extensively...