This paper studies the direct effect of foreign investment on target firm operating performance and growth. Foreign-invested firms grow in size but not in productivity compared with non-invested firms over a four-year horizon. Decomposing foreign investment into foreign direct investment and...

Trade between Latin America and China has grown at an annual average rate of 25 percent since 2000, driven primarily by strong complementarity between the two economies. While commodities-for-manufacturing trade continues to be the dominant feature of the economic relationship, a number of LAC...

Using two standard cycle methodologies (classical and deviation cycle) and a comprehensive sample of 83 countries worldwide, including all developing regions, we show that the Latin American and Caribbean cycle exhibits two distinctive features. First, and most important, its expansion...

The paper studies the effects of the real exchange rate (RER) on capital accumulation in Mexico in the period since the late 1980s. By testing for the existence of potential asymmetries, the paper seeks to clarify some of the controversies surrounding the subject. It shows the RER’s long-run...

This paper presents an interpretation of post-1953 Colombian economic growth and a discussion on future outcomes. The interpretation takes the form of a data playback guided by the decentralized equilibrium version of the Cass-Koopmans-Ramsey model. The role of technical change as a driver of...

The paper analyzes Jamaica's experience of low growth despite consistently high investment. Cross-country analysis provides evidence of a significant and negative relationship between total public debt and productivity growth. Looking at the specific channels through which high debt affects...

The paper considers investment and growth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Notwithstanding cross-country differences, investment as a whole has been too low, too heavily tilted toward the public sector, too highly dependent on external influences, and less productive than in...

We estimate public investment gaps in a sample of developing countries using a public investment demand function. We then use GDP per capita projections, forecasts of structural transformation, and three SDG targets (poverty, infant mortality and lower secondary school completion) to predict...

We study the role of competition for the hold-up problem in foreign direct investment in resource-based industries. The host country government is not only unable to commit not to expropriate investment ex post, but is also unable to commit to the provision of local resources. In the case of...

We study the role of competition for the hold-up problem in foreign direct investment in resource-based industries. The host country government is not only unable to commit not to expropriate investment ex post, but is also unable to commit to the provision of local resources. In the case of...