Executive Directors commend Bangladesh in addressing the major challenges to growth and poverty reduction. The strategy is comprehensive and confronts the key issues impeding sustainable development and inclusive growth in Bangladesh. Implementing sound macro-financial policies, intensifying...

The Sixth Five Year Plan, as outlined in Bangladesh's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, targets strategic growth and employment. The medium-term macroeconomic framework plan entails the involvement of both the private and public sectors. Human resources development strategy programs reaching out...

This Selected Issues paper reviews recent developments in growth and employment in Bulgaria and highlights key constraints to growth suggested by cross-country competitiveness studies. Bulgaria’s GDP has grown substantially since economic and financial stabilization in 1997. The global...

Purpose – Measures of inequality determine the effectiveness of social and economic policies aimed at reducing inequality and to design effective intervention policies. The purpose of this paper is to focus on poverty reduction and welfare improving impacts of reducing income inequality in the...

We use a rapid introduction of an unconditional cash grant (child support) in South Africa to estimate the marginal propensity to consume and earn out of a permanent change in unearned income. We find that the marginal propensity to earn is about to -0.25 for single-adult households, and...

Purpose – This article attempts to unravel the ways in which New Labour's economic and social policies differ from those of previous Conservative and Labour administrations. Design/methodology/approach – The article analyses Treasury documents, which outline the philosophy underpinning the...