This paper argues that although the bulk of the literature tends to focus on regulatory uncertainty stemming from formal practices, uncertainty that comes from unpredictable informal practices surrounding regulation is an underexplored additional form of regulatory uncertainty. The paper uses...

Most countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) experienced a growth acceleration in 2011-17. This paper identifies the determinants of this growth by combining country-specific information with the results of a cross-country regression model. Growth was characterized by...

This paper investigates the role of fiscal guarantees in promoting infrastructure investment. Infrastructure is a critical driver of economic growth, but infrastructure entails significant up-front costs that yield benefits after a time lag. Investors hesitate to put their money down on private...

A notable contrast in modern economic history has been the rapid economic growth of China and the slower and volatile economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. As the engagement between the two continues to grows, there will be a greater cross-fertilization of experiences. Total factor productivity...

Few economic ideas are as intuitive as the notion that increasing investment is the best way to raise future output. This idea was the basis for the theory quot;capital fundamentalism.quot; Under this view, differences in national stocks of capital were the primary determinants of differences in...

This paper examines the past and future trajectory of the Russian Federation's potential growth: the speed at which an economy could grow if all resources were utilized efficiently. The findings show that it peaked before the 2008 global financial crisis and continued to decline up to 2017. The...

Using a comprehensive and proprietary data set on international private equity activity, this paper studies the determinants of buyout investments across 61 countries and 19 industries over 1990-2017. The study finds evidence that macroeconomic conditions, development of stock and credit...

This paper investigates the potential benefits for a country from investing in data transparency. The paper shows that increased data transparency can bring substantive returns in lower costs of external borrowing. This result is obtained by estimating the impact of public data transparency on...

Investment growth in many emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) has slowed sharply since 2010. Investment growth performance has varied significantly across different regions, however. This paper examines the temporal evolution of investment growth in six EMDE regions, documents...

Investment growth in emerging market and developing economies has slowed sharply since 2010. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the causes and implications of this slowdown and presents a menu of policy responses to improve investment growth. It reports four main results. First, the...