Central banks in developing countries, wanting to devalue the domestic currency, usually intervene in the foreign exchange market by buying up foreign currency using domestic money-often backing this up with sterilization to counter inflationary pressures. Such interventions are usually...

[Introduction ...] This paper examines the conditions of access to water in the slums of the developing world. It has three goals. The first is to identify the objective and policy-related challenges that hinder progress in the provision of safe, affordable, continuous and easy access to water...

Economic vulnerability is approached from micro- and macroeconomic perspectives. While the microeconomic perspective is concerned with the impact of shocks on the well-being of individual households, the macroeconomic perspective focuses on the impact of these shocks on economic growth. This...

[Introduction ...] This paper examines the problems of the excessive volatility of capital inflows in emerging market countries and its consequences on their exchange rates. The second section looks at the pattern of capital flows received by these countries, and the third section focuses on...

Several countries around the world have adopted the inflation targeting regime for monetary policy. Despite the growing literature on the issue, it is not clear whether developing and emerging countries can improve their economic performance by adopting inflation targeting. This working paper...

This working paper has been commissioned by the Poverty Group, Bureau for Development Policy at UNDP, to identify the transmission mechanisms of the financial crisis from developed to developing countries and to provide broad policy recommendations at the national, global and regional level. The...

This paper reviews the effectiveness and efficiency of key policy instruments for MDG (Millennium Development Goals) achievement. We first demonstrate that average MDG progress is likely to be too slow to meet the education and health sector targets in a number of developing countries. We also...

The informal sector (IS) plays a significant role in developing countries viz. the provision of employment, income and supplying ignored markets. However, working and employment conditions within the sector are still poor. Its expansion and changing structures have thus drawn the attention of...

Resource curse theory claims that resource abundance encourages violent conflict. A study of 37 oil-producing developing countries, however, reveals that oil states with very high levels of oil revenue are remarkably stable. An analysis of the ways in which governments spend oil revenues...

Although primary industries are important to developing countries, they have been largely unable to contribute to rapid growth. Systematically strengthening the development of local technology-intensive suppliers (t-suppliers), however, may contribute to both reinforcing the industrial base and...