The current global recession reconfirms low-income countries? vulnerability to external shocks. The exposure is a direct result of integration into the world economy. Declines in export earnings, remittances, tourism and capital flows are some of the transmission mechanisms. The developed and...

GLOBAL CRISIS AND POVERTY PREVENTION Most recent statistics indicate that the global financial crisis will cause a fall in export earnings in Sierra Leone of approximately fifteen percent in 2009 compared to 2008. A regression-based model estimates that this decline in exports earnings could...

Prior to the Asian financial crisis, it was accepted wisdom to compare the growth of Latin America unfavourably to that of a selection of East and Southeast Asian countries (the so-called high performing Asian economies). This paper presents statistics that indicate that the differences in...

In a recent paper Dollar and Kraay come to sweeping conclusions about economic growth and the poor. On the basis of empirical work they assert that standard World Bank and IMF policy packages are good for the poor. This paper demonstrates that (i) the empirical work is based on theoretically...

Despite its ideology while in opposition, once in power the ANC government implemented an orthodox macroeconomic policy which stressed deficit reduction and a tight monetary policy, combined with trade liberalisation. The stated purpose of this package (the Growth, Employment, and Redistribution...

During 2005-2006, appreciation of the Kwacha, Zambia?s currency, had a significant negative impact on public income. This exchange-rate effect received little notice in the debate over macroeconomic policy. The appreciation reduced fiscal space largely because of binding IMF conditionalities on...

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