Using two macroeconomic models and results, the authors simulate global outcomes in the 1990s under several scenarios, allowing for the impact of: (a) changes in industrial countries'financial and macroeconomic conditions; (b) changes in the international oil market; and (c) changes in...

This paper reviews the rationale for programs and then evaluates the design, implementation, and effectiveness of Bank-supported adjustment programs anddiscusses lessons that have emerged from the analysis of adjustment problems and programs. In countries that are experiencing acute...

Lederman and Maloney examine the empirical relationships between trade structure and economic growth, particularly the influence of natural resource abundance, export concentration, and intra-industry trade. They test the robustness of these relationships across proxies, control variables, and...

This paper presents a framework for measuring how the structure of taxation and government spending affect output growth. It is shown that when countries are not following a steady-state growth path, static and dynamic distortions will affect output growth. In particular, taxes can affect output...

The author estimates the effects on growth of commodity price shocks, and uncertainty within an established empirical growth model. Ex-post shocks, and ex-ante uncertainty have been treated in the empirical literature as if they were synonymous. But they are distinct concepts, and it is both...

The authors examine the empirical links between current account deficits and a broad set of economic variables proposed in the literature. To accomplish this, they complement and extend previous research by using a large, consistent set of macroeconomic data on public and private domestic...

How did the East Asian miracle turn into one of the worst financial crisis of the century? The authors address the question using Malaysia as a case study. Many discussions of the East Asian crisis address proximate and short-run causes of the crisis, such as the current account deficit,...

The authors examine the growth and convergence of total factor productivity in agriculture and manufacturing in a large sample of countries spanning many levels of development over the period 1967-1992. There is a widely held but rarely tested view that the rate of growth in agricultural...

Modern political economy stresses"society's polarization"as a determinant of development outcomes. Among the most common dorms of social conflict are class polarization, and ethnic polarization. A middle class consensus is defined as a high share of income for the middle class and a low degree...

Policy framework papers (PFPs) have become important documents because they provide a framework for the economic policies that a country will pursue and for donor assistance. The projections included in these documents reflect the policy targets and the expected outcomes of policy reforms. The...