What was the impact of Brazil's 1998-99 currency crisis-which resulted in a change of exchange rate regime and a large real devaluation-on the occupational structure of the labor force and the distribution of incomes? Would it have been possible to predict such effects ahead of the crisis? The...

On February 2, 2002, Lithuania switched its currency anchor from the dollar to the euro. While pegging to the dollar (since April 1994) has proven successful throughout the transition years, the recent decision to peg to the euro was motivated by the increasing trade relations with European...

It is naive to believe that a market economy can be introduced by"shock therapy,"the author argues. In the several cases when it has been attempted, it has brought problems. A market economy requires adequate institutions and appropriate behavior, both of which can be introduced only gradually...

In the past decade, Latin America has taken the lead in structural pension reform which replaces a publicly managed pay-as-you-go defined-benefit system with a system of privately managed, fully funded defined-contribution accounts supplemented by a social safety net This arrangement is designed...

Pension reform is spreading around the globe, from Latin America to the OECD countries, and major reform projects are being discussed in many other developing, transition, and OECD countries. The authors survey current research issues and country experiences related to old-age social security...

Latvia's experience over the past decade shows that economic growth and real convergence can no longer be assumedto be exogenously driven processes determined by given technological improvements and relatively higher factor returns. Instead, it is an endogenously driven process led by many...

The authors analyze the example of a landlord, a moneylender, and a tenant (the landlord having access to finance on the same terms as the money lender). It is natural to assume that the landlord has first claim on the tenant's output (as a rule, if they live in the same village, he may have...

The authors develop a macroeconomic framework that captures links between aid, public investment, growth, and poverty. Public investment is disaggregated into education, infrastructure, and health, and affects both aggregate supply and demand. Dutch disease effects are captured by accounting for...

The combination of distance, poor infrastructure, and being landlocked by neighbors with poor infrastructure, can make transport costs many times higher for some developing countries than for most others. Drawing on two traditions of economic modeling --Heckscher-Ohlin trade theory and von...

The author concludes that government, through the tax system, cannot really do better than private financial markets at funding infrastructure projects. All the financial advantages of sovereign finance are due purely to its coercive powers and are of no social value. Under government finance...