The authors consider two alternative methods of forecasting real per capita GDP at various horizons: 1) univariate time series models estimated country by country; and 2) cross-country growth regressions. They evaluate the out-of-sample forecasting performance of both approaches for a large...

The authors present a method for forecasting growth cycles in economic activity, measured as total industrial production. They construct a series which they aggregate into a composite leading indicator to predict the path of the economy in Lithuania. The cycle is the result of the economy's...

In this paper, the authors provide systematic panel-based econometric estimates of plant-level returns to scale for various 3-digit and 4-digit manufacturing industries, using panel data for Chilean plants. The paper attempts to answer two questions: 1) Do policies that promote"bigness"in...

The authors construct and derive the properties of estimators of welfare that take advantage of the detailed information about living standards available in small household surveys and the comprehensive coverage of a census or large sample. By combining the strengths of each, the estimators can...

The authors develop an early warning system for macroeconomic vulnerability for several Latin American countries, drawing on the work of Kaminsky, Lizondo, and Reinhart (1997) and Kaminsky (1988). They build a composite leading indicator that signals macroeconomic vulnerability, showing that,...

Past approaches to correcting for unit nonresponse in sample surveys by re-weighting the data assume that the problem is ignorable within arbitrary subgroups of the population. Theory and evidence suggest that this assumption is unlikely to hold, and that household characteristics such as income...

The authors revisit the widely disseminated results of a study (Bindlish and Evenson 1993, 1997) of the impact of the training and visit (T&V) system of management for public extension services in Kenya. T&V was introduced in Kenya by the World Bank and has since been supported through two...

Knowledge accumulation means either new knowledge (an increase in its quality), greater access to existing knowledge (an increase in its quantity), or both. The authors examine the relative contribution of these two components of knowledge to total factor productivity (TFP) for North-North and...

Earlier studies of spillovers from international research and development (R&D) suggest how economies benefit from R&D conducted abroad. To the extent that countries importing new technologies do not pay in full for the increased variety in intermediate inputs in production, they are reaping an...

Lederman and Maloney trace the evolution of research and development (R&D) expenditures along the development process using a new global panel data set. They show that R&D effort measured as a share of GDP rises with development at an increasing rate. The authors examine how four groups of...