The early years of the global recovery from the bout of emerging market crises of the late 1990s and the bursting of the internet/technology bubble in 2000-2001 were marked by abnormal macroeconomic conditions. Ken Rogoff, then Chief Economist of the IMF, introduced the IMF's Fall 2003 World...

This chapter begins with an overview of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on economies of Asia generally, before turning to its impact on supply chains specifically, using the medical equipment sector as a case study to illustrate the practical complexities. It then considers the pandemic’s...

Analysis of the financial crisis in East Asia has focussed on the most-affected East Asian economies, namely: Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, and to a lesser extent the Philippines. However, these economies account for less than 15 percent of the GDP of East Asia. Japan, which...

The European Union is mired in a bad economic equilibrium of stagnation and deflation – stag-deflation. While the problem is excess supply and inadequate demand, current policy, premised on private-sector-investment-led growth, aims to expand supply further through ultra-low interest rates....

Concerns have been raised about the erosion of social choice and the widening income disparities between rich and poor countries, two issues which are often linked. The essays in this part comment on several aspects of this nexus of issues. Sovereignty & Social Choice under the Rules-Based...

This policy brief tries to work out some of the implications for the Global South of the emergence of Industry 4.0 and the evolution toward a data-driven economy. The digital transformation provides developing economies new opportunities to leapfrog industrial age infrastructure, to draw on the...

This paper addresses the issue of how developing economies acquire new capabilities and the role of industrial policy in facilitating the technology acquisition that underpins these new capabilities. We focus on the role of the firm as aggregator of production technologies, business methods,...

While the digital transformation opens up new opportunities for convergence of the global south in terms of technological leapfrogging, knowledge spillovers and access to new market platforms, it also throws up some daunting competitive and governance challenges. These include: keeping pace with...

This study seeks to identify and estimate the relative importance of supply - versus demand - side constraints on Ethiopia's exports. Ethiopia has tried radically different trade strategies in the past, including a strategy of import replacement/protection for infant industries during the...