The troublesome debts of many developing countries have spawned much literature on why countries borrow, on what debt contributes to growth, on why countries repay, and on how to deal with existing debt. The author provides an analytical primer on the following aspects of sovereign debt : 1) the...

How rich would resource-abundant countries be if they had actually followed the Hartwick Rule (invest resource rents in other assets) over the past 30 years? The authors use time series data on investments and rents onexhaustible resource extraction for 70 countries to answer this question. The...

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"capital fundamentalism."Under this view, differences in national stocks of capital were the primary determinants of differences in levels of...

The author studies the determinants of total factor productivity (TFP) for manufacturing firms in Bangladesh using data from a recent survey. She obtains TFP measures by making use of firm-specific deflators for output and inputs. Controlling for industry, location, and year fixed effects, she...

Small and informal firms account for a large share of employment in developing countries. The rapid expansion of microfinance services is based on the belief that these firms have productive investment opportunities and can enjoy high returns to capital if given the opportunity. However,...

The 1990s have seen renewed interest in themes of economic growth and development. This is a welcome change after a decade and a half during which macroeconomics was dominated by a concern with short-term adjustment and stabilization issues -- and basic problems of growth, capital accumulation,...

In the past 35 years, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan (China) have transformed themselves from technologically backwards and poor economies to relatively modern, affluent economies. Each has experienced more than a fourfold increase in per capita income. In each, a significant...

The authors'study of aid, investment, and policies in Africa leads them to four principal conclusions: 1) The traditional links between aid, investment, and growth are not robust. Aid does not necessarily finance investment and investment does not necessarily promote growth. 2) Differences in...

In recent years, various Latin American governments have resorted to taxes on bank debits and financial transactions as alternative ways of raising revenue. Considerable interest has developed in understanding the consequences of such reforms. The author constructs a dynamic general equilibrium...

A look at the data reveals that in OECD countries, economic fluctuations exhibit a high degree of synchronization. In 1965-90, cross-country contemporaneous GDP growth correlations averaged 45 percent. This suggests that a central element of any theory of economic fluctuations should be an...