Debate on Indonesia's palm oil policy was stimulated by a sharp increase in cooking oil prices in 1994-95 and a resulting increase in the export tax rate on crude palm oil. Palm oil has been one of the fastest growing subsectors in Indonesia. Using a quantitative model, the author analyzes the...

China's gross domestic product per capita was only US$300 to $370 in 1980-91 in an estimate based on the World Bank Atlas approach used in the World Development Report. These estimates fail to capture the fact that in the 10 years since embarking on a program of economic reform aimed at rapid...

The authors test for the existence of asset price bubbles in Latin America in 1980-2001, focusing mainly on stock prices. Based on unit root and cointegration tests, they find that they cannot reject the hypothesis of bubbles. They arrive at the same conclusion using Froot and Obstfeld's...

An important component of policies to promote effective competition among all segments of network industries (such as electricity, telecommunications, or railways) is a regulatory environment guaranteeing that competitors have access to the services of potential"bottleneck"facilities too costly...

The author develops and applies a methodology to empirically explore the effects of trade policies on the distribution of income and poverty in developing countries. He uses a methodology based on two links-one connecting trade policies to prices, and another connecting prices to household...

The authors examine the degree to which international cotton prices are linked and test whether such links have improved over the past decade. They conclude that the degree of linkage has improved over the past decade, in the short run largely as the result of short-run price transmission -- and...

Closed-end national index funds (NIFs of country funds) invest primarily in the stocks of the originating countries, such as Brazil, India, and the Republic of Korea. They are typically traded in the organized exchanges of industrial countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom....

The authors explore the effects on the terms of trade of regional economic integration. They show why it is an appropriate measure of the welfare effects of such integration, comparing it with the many ex post studies that base their conclusions on changes in the import shares of member and...

This paper evaluates the impact of coffee sector reforms during late 1980s and early 1990s on coffee growers in the main coffee producing countries. Earlier evidence suggests that the reforms increased the share of producer prices in the world price of coffee. This hypothesis is tested in the...

This paper provides empirical estimates of contracting models of the Phillips curve for four middle-income developing economies-Chile, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and Turkey. Following an analytical review, models with both one lead and one lag, and two lags and three leads, are then...