Public sectors in the Pacific Islands are frequently described as being'too big'and as'crowding out'private sector economic activity. Reducing their size, it follows, would provide much-needed space for private sector expansion and result in higher levels of economic growth. This paper addresses...

As well acknowledged in the literature, housing is often the dominant consumption good for most households. As such, it should be included in a comprehensive welfare aggregate to measure people's living standards accurately. However, assigning a value to the flow of the dwelling for homeowners...

Is there a"middle income trap"? Theory suggests that the determinants of growth at low and high income levels may be different. If countries struggle to transition from growth strategies that are effective at low income levels to growth strategies that are effective at high income levels, they...

This paper quantifies the misallocation of manufacturing output and factors of production between establishments across Indian districts during 1989-2010. It first distills a number of stylized facts about misallocation in India, and demonstrates the validity of misallocation metrics by...

The global financial crisis and its aftermath have triggered extraordinary policy responses in advanced countries. The impacts of these policy responses?from asset price bubbles to currency depreciations?have often been felt in the developing world. As tapering talk evolves into actual...

In Africa, most development strategies include efforts to improve the productivity of staple crops grown on smallholder farms. An underlying premise is that small farms are productive in the African context and that smallholders do not forgo economies of scale -- a premise supported by the often...

Latin America was an aggressive practitioner of industrial policies (IP) in the years 1950-1980. During much of the period the general practice was in line with the then mainstream thinking in development economics. Significant growth, industrialization and modernization took place, but serious...

A number of authors have argued that a worker's occupation of employment is at least as important as the worker's industry of employment in determining whether the worker will be hurt or helped by international trade. This paper investigates the role of occupational mobility on the effects of...

Following the cessation of hostilities in May 2009, the Government of Sri Lanka has announced a suitably ambitious macroeconomic vision to capitalize on the peace dividend. Its goals include growing at 8 percent or more per year and lowering government indebtedness from around 80 to 60 percent...