This paper analyzes the growth pathways of 1,321 regions in the European Union from 2003 to 2017. The aim is to inform integrated territorial investments and other economic development initiatives in lagging regions. Using the definition of lagging regions from the European Commission's Catching...

This paper reviews the determinants of Latin America's uneven growth based on an accounting decomposition that breaks down countries' growth (relative to the world) into three trade-related channels: (i) an export pull measuring the traction exerted by the country's exports, (ii) an external...

This paper exploits a novel municipal-level data set to explore patterns of convergence in income and poverty in Mexico during 1992-2014. The paper finds that, despite a context of overall stagnant economic growth and poverty reduction, there is evidence of income and poverty convergence at the...

Since its foundation over sixty years ago, the European Union (EU) has become the modern world's greatest "convergence machine", propelling poorer, and newer, member states to become high-income economies, and delivering to its citizens some of the highest living standards and lowest levels of...

This paper examines the patterns of growth of Poland, and its transition into high-income status over the past two decades from a macro and micro perspective. It benchmarks Polish performance with that observed in established high-income countries, and with that of others that have been trapped...

Labor productivity in EMDEs is just under one-fifth of the advanced economy average, while in LICs, it is just 2 percent. Average productivity growth in EMDEs has picked up rapidly since 2000, renewing interest in the convergence hypothesis, which predicts that economies with low productivity...

The many and varied crises in the world economy since 2007 seem to have different origins and iverse manifestations. This paper contends that there is however a structural shift beneath the global economy that is now reaching a critical mass, and that accounts for many of these crises, despite...

Declining water quality can impact the economy in various ways. Impacts can be found in the health sector, where labor productivity can be affected, in agriculture, where the quality and quantity of food produced can be reduced, and in tourism, real estate, aquaculture/fisheries and other...

This analysis examines the relationship between nonrenewable resource dependence, economic growth and income inequality. It uses a two-equation system in which the Gini index and GDP per capita are the dependent variables and the stock of nonrenewable resources as a share of national wealth-i.e....

The Yugo, a communist-era car from the former Yugoslavia, was widely ridiculed for shedding its parts on roads across Europe and the United States. Zastava, which made Yugo, fared even worse than its product. After the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, the factory was reduced to producing only...