The authors examine Thailand's macro-economy and micro-economy for the period 1988-97 to assess the extent to which the country's mix of macroeconomic and financial sector policies contributed to its economic crisis in 1997. They conclude that the crisis was fundamentally one of private sector...

In recent years, private capital inflows to some developing countries have increased sharply. This increase has provided the financing needed to enhance the use of existing capacity and to raise investment levels. But capital inflows produce their own problems. They can increase inflation and...

The authors analyze the effects of bilateral debt forgiveness on 32 low-income countries in Africa (1984-93). Asking whether it makes a difference for recipient countries to receive pure grants rather that official development assistance (ODA) debt relief, they focus on how one form of aid or...

The buildup of vulnerabilities in East Asia is shown here to be mainly the result of weaknesses in financial intermediation, poor corporate governance, and deficient government policies, including pro-cyclical macroeconomic policy responses to large capital inflows. Weak due diligence by...

Over the past decade or so, most Central and Eastern European countries have reformed their pension systems, significantly downsizing their public pillars and creating private pillars based on capitalization accounts. Early policy attention was focused on the accumulation phase but several...

This note adds to the existing literature by examining the enabling conditions for the creation of mandatory funded pension funds, and identifying additional factors that are important to consider in the early stages of the reform. The note stresses the importance of some factors that had...

This paper provides an assessment of the funded pension system and the quality of the regulatory framework for both accumulation and payout phase. It suggests that the lack of portfolio diversification may contribute in the future to low returns and poor pensions and provides a number of...

This paper provides an assessment of the Polish funded pension system and the quality of the regulatory framework for the accumulation phase. There are two elements that distinguish the Polish pension fund portfolios from other reforming countries': the relatively high component of domestic...