This paper asks whether new technological capacity for producing and exporting additional products provides incentives for greater capital accumulation, without being fully reflected in a higher rate of total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Using a highly disaggregated data set of each...

The authors examine the effects of WTO agreements and domestic trade policy reforms on production, welfare, and poverty in Bangladesh. They use a sequential dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, which takes into account accumulation effects, allowing for long-run analysis. The...

Decomposing China's real export growth, of over 500 percent since 1992,reveals a number of interesting findings. First, China's export structure changed dramatically, with growing export shares in electronics and machinery and a decline in agriculture and apparel. Second, despite the shift into...

No country has achieved sustained economic development without substantially investing in human capital. Previous studies have shown the handsome returns to various forms of basic education, research, training, learning-by-doing, and capacity-building. But education by itself does not guarantee...

Projects and reforms targeting infrastructure services can affect consumer welfare through changes in the price, coverage, or quality of the services provided. The benefits of improved service quality-while significant-are often overlooked because they are difficult to quantify. This paper...

Most existing estimates of the macroeconomic costs of AIDS, as measured by the reduction in thegrowth rate of gross domestic product, are modest. For Africa-the continent where the epidemic has hit the hardest-they range between 0.3 and 1.5 percent annually. The reason is that these estimates...

A variety of monetary policies regarding contraception exists around the world. These range from high user charges in some countries, to free contraceptives in many, to incentives and disincentives in others. This paper examines these policies, focuses on charges and payments as they existed in...

This paper provides empirical estimates of the impacts of natural disasters on different forms of capital (with a focus on human and intangible capital and natural capital), and on real gross domestic product per capita. The types of disaster considered are droughts, earthquakes, floods, and...

There is a common perception that low productivity or low growth is due to what can be called an"innovation shortfall,"usually identified as a low rate of investment in research and development (R&D) when compared with some high innovation countries. The usual reaction to this perceived problem...

The authors develop an endogenous growth model that combines structural change with repeated product improvement. That is, the technologies in one sector of the model become not only increasingly capital-intensive, but also progressively productive over time. Application of the basic model to...