Despite an initial surge in COVID-19 cases, cross country data suggests that Turkey containedrelatively quickly the spread and worst health effects of the virus. As in other countries, however, continued vigilance is essential to sustain this fragile trend. Turkey's pandemic response may offer...

The effect of structural reforms on growth in Europe and Central Asia is assessed by looking separately at each supply-side channel: capital, labor, and productivity, with the last estimated using the stochastic frontier approach. By controlling for the interaction with the economic cycle, the...

This paper reviews the literature relevant to understanding political constraints to economic reforms. Reform refers to changes in government policies or institutional rules because status quo policies and institutions are not working well to achieve the goals of economic well-being and...

Barber B. Conable, President of the World Bank, discussed how in Mexico, the decade of the Eighties began with a massive increase in the size of government, its ownership and interventions, and with an unmanageable debt. By the decade's end, Mexico had launched one of the most ambitious,...

This economic report records the economic activities of Armenia for the year 2013. A steep decline in construction caused economic growth to weaken to 0.6 percent in the second quarter of 2013 (year-on-year) from 7.5 percent in the first quarter and 7.2 percent in 2012 as a whole. Developments...

This paper investigates the impact of World Bank development policy operations on the quality of economic policy during the period 1998-2015. A new theoretical framework distinguishes among three effects that have been conflated hitherto: (a) marginal impacts of additional policy actions within...

This paper assesses the effects of selected structural reforms on labor productivity growth for 37 developing countries over 2006-14. It combines newly constructed reform indexes using the International Monetary Fund's Monitoring of Fund Arrangements data set and firm-level productivity from the...

The World Bank Group has come a long way in supporting structural reforms in its member countries. The most remarkable feature of its long 35 years and continuing journey has been its ability to listen, learn and adjust over time. It learnt relatively quickly that reform ownership is a necessary...

As the second largest African oil producer, Angola had unsustainable government expenditures in effect until 2014 due to the drop in international oil prices. The Government responded with a comprehensive reform program including the gradual elimination of most fuel subsidies and an extension of...