We compare economic efficiencies in Brazil, India, and China, where economic efficiency measures the gap between potential and actual output for a given input combination and technological factor. We use stochastic production frontier models to measure the contributions of factors of production...

Should developing countries focus on diversifying their export basket or should they instead specialize their exports according to their existing comparative advantage? In this paper we attempt to answer this question by reviewing the literature on export diversification and specialization, by...

Vietnam has been following China's path closely and very successfully for the last two decades, since the adoption of Doi moi in 1986. Over those last two decades, economic growth rates in both countries have been the highest worldwide (with GDP growing by 8 per cent and 10 per cent per year,...

Set in the context of the recent theoretical and policy debates on appropriate exchange rate regimes for emerging market economies in a world of free capital mobility, the paper attempts to present the case for an intermediate exchange rate regime, drawing on recent theoretical and empirical...

This paper reassesses the gains from trade for sub-Saharan Africa, and draws their implications for labour market adjustment and poverty reduction. It reviews previous studies on multilateral liberalization, focusing on the findings from computable general equilibrium (CGE) models with relevance...

It is often argued that an important reason why globalization may lead to GDP growth but fail to reduce poverty is because the poor are unable to participate in the new market opportunities and are marginalized. In this paper we examine the experience of resource-poor farmers in south India, who...

In recent years there has been a growing literature that analyses the threat which Chinese exports pose to the exports of other developing countries. The paper provides a critique of the standard measures of export similarity which have been used to estimate the threat from China in these...

This paper illustrates how the use of microeconometric techniques can be used to uncover the micro dynamics behind macro shocks. Using Mexican micro data we find out that—controlling for everything else—between 1994 and 1998 returns to personal characteristics in the tradable sector...

Trade policies can promote aggregate efficiency, but the ensuing structural adjustments generally create both winners and losers. From an incomes perspective, trade liberalization can raise GDP per capita, but rates of emergence from poverty depend upon individual household characteristics of...