We build an agent-based model to study how coordination failures, credit constraints and unequal access to investment opportunities affect inequality and aggregate income dynamics. The economy is populated by households who can invest in alternative projects associated with different...

Debt in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) is at its highest level in half a century. In about nine out of 10 EMDEs, debt is higher now than it was in 2010 and, in half of the EMDEs, debt is more than 30 percentage points of gross domestic product higher. Historically, elevated...

This article investigates how financial development helps to reduce poverty directly through the McKinnon conduit effect and indirectly through economic growth. The results obtained with data for a sample of developing countries from 1966 through 2000 suggest that the poor benefit from the...

This Selected Issues paper on Kuwait reviews its economic development strategy and uses a variety of analytical methods to highlight Kuwait’s policy challenges and their effectiveness. Kuwait has accumulated large fiscal surpluses, enabling it to build up a sizable asset position for...