Advances in artificial intelligence and automation have the potential to be labor-saving and to increase inequality and poverty around the globe. They also give rise to winner-takes-all dynamics that advantage highly skilled individuals and countries that are at the forefront of technological...

This paper examines alternative hypotheses concerning the determinants of success in the transition from Communism to the market. In particular, we look at whether speed of privatization, legal institutions or initial conditions are more important in explaining the growth of the transition...

The revival of economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is all the more welcome for having followed one of the worst economic disasters since the industrial revolution. Six of the world's fastest growing economies in the 2000s were African. But with the exception of Ethiopia and Rwanda, the growth...

Contents -- Preface -- I Monetary Policy -- Questions: How Should the Crisis Affect Our Views of Monetary Policy? -- 1 Monetary Policy in the Wake of the Crisis -- 2 Conventional Wisdom Challenged? Monetary Policy after the Crisis -- 3 Lessons for Monetary Policy -- 4 Macroeconomics, Monetary...

This volume revisits the role of industrial policy, discussing the most effective use of industrial policies in learning economies, development finance, and promoting investment in regional and global contexts. Also included are in-depth case studies of Japan and India's experience with...

The World Development Report (WDR) has become such a fixture that it is easy to forget the circumstances under which it was born and the Bank's motivation for producing such a report at that time. In the first chapter of this essay, the authors provide a brief background on the circumstances of...

It was a part of the wisdom of mainstream economics that in the early stages of development inequality would rise but as growth persisted, it would, eventually, decline. Early evidence seemed to suggest that this pattern would be borne out. But, as time passed and growth persisted, inequality...

It was a part of the wisdom of mainstream economics that in the early stages of development inequality would rise but, as growth persisted, it would, eventually, decline. Early evidence seemed to suggest that this pattern would be borne out. But, as time passed and growth persisted, inequality...