Do Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) suffer from a debt overhang? Is debt relief going to improve their growth rates? To answer these important questions, we look at how the debt-growth relationship varies with indebtedness levels and other country characteristics in a panel of developing...

Since 2004 Egypt''s growth has been accelerating in step with the launching of a series of ambitious reforms, reversing a trend during the preceding half-decade when Egypt''s growth rate fell below that of most regional peers and well below that of the average developing country. This paper...

Edited by Mario I. Blejer and Ke-young Chu, this book investigates linkages among components of the public sector, as well as between macro and micro aspects of fiscal policy, in developing countries. It presents 13 papers prepared by economists of the IMF's Fiscal Affairs Department

Aid is primarily given to governments whereas the engine of sustained growth is the private sector. It is therefore illusory to investigate the impact of aid on growth without considering the impact of government interventions on the private sector. The model shows how these interventions...

Although few would doubt that very high inflation is bad for growth, there is much less agreement about moderate inflation’s effects. Using panel regressions and a nonlinear specification, this paper finds a statistically and economically significant negative relationship between inflation and...