The Austral plan, launched in 1985, was Argentina's most recent stabilization strategy for reducing high inflation. A heterodox program, it combined orthodox components - tight fiscal policy and monetary restraint - with less conventional wage and price controls. The Austral plan failed to bring...

Since its creation in 1991, the Peruvian Social Fund (FONCODES) has spent about US$570 million funding micro-projects throughout Peru. Many of these projects have involved building and renovating school facilities. The authors analyze the targeting and impact of FONCODES investments in the...

Foreign firms often have a more educated workforce and pay higher wages than domestic firms. This does not necessarily imply that foreign ownership translates into higher demand for educated workers or higher wages, since foreign investment may be guided by unobservable firm characteristics...

The authors quantitatively assess the consequences of Hungary for three types of policies: removing quantitative import restraints in agriculture, both for all of agriculture and for each of five separate agricultural products; removing the export subsidy program in agriculture; and adopting a...

This paper contains abstracts of Policy Research Working Paper series, numbers 2883 - 2933.

To bridge the gap between case studies and highly aggregate cross-country analyses of civil unrest, the author uses data from Uganda to explore determinants of civil strife (as contrasted to theft and physical violence) at the community level, as well as the potentially differential impact of...

The first generation of genetically modified (GM) crop varieties sought to increase farmer profitability through cost reductions or higher yields. The next generation of GM food research is focusing also on breeding for attributes of interest to consumers, beginning with"golden rice,"which has...

This paper examines the implications for EMENA of EEC trade policy. Following an analysis of EEC trade agreements with EMENA countries, the paper has shown that EMENA's trade performance in the EEC has been far from uniform. While Turkey and Morocco, who carried out economic reforms, increased...

Despite the achievements of the export-oriented economies of East Asia, many policymakers doubt that a development path led by manufactured exports is feasible for all developing countries. The author examines what happens if all developing countries, rather than merely a few, expand...

The authors analyze the patterns of East Asia's trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) from a global and intraregional perspective, taking into account the importance of trade and FDI interlinkages. They propose two regionally-focused approaches to promoting trade and FDI in East...