Is resource abundance a blessing or a curse? Typically, in resource rich countries, domestic fuel prices are lower, and energy intensity of GDP is higher. But they have higher investment in R&D and fixed capital stock, larger foreign exchange reserves and more inflows of FDI. They also have...

This paper argues that developing countries have limited arsenal at the national level to manage financial instability. The solutions have to be sought mainly at the multilateral level and these include: provision of adequate international liquidity at appropriate terms for current account...

This paper examines the current food crises, the projected effect of climate change, the vulnerabilities created by regional concentrations of food production, imports and exports, and the significant role of women as food producers, consumers and family food managers. Bridging productivity...

Research and practice related to social policy and poverty alleviation have left a legacy of a very broad agenda of “things that need to be done”, along with important unanswered questions about how to integrate social and economic development. These suggest the fruitfulness of focusing more...

Recent calls for more intense debate on and reforms to the international monetary system imply that the current system is unable to respond appropriately and adequately to challenges that have appeared, or become more acute, in recent years. This paper focuses on four such challenges: ensuring...

With bank-level data from 81 developing countries, the paper shows that increased foreign bank presence is associated with increased reliance on non-deposit based funding, which leads to higher interest rate spreads, less credit to the private sector, and higher volatility in bank loans. Foreign...

This paper presents a simple theoretical framework to explain variations in income inequality over time and between countries. It also analyses the factors responsible for the widespread rise in inequality during the neo-liberal reforms of 1980-2000 in the fields of trade, foreign direct...

We introduce two separate datasets (The Global Consumption Dataset (GCD) and The Global Income Dataset (GID)) containing an unprecedented portrait of consumption and income of persons over time, within and across countries, around the world. The benchmark version of the dataset presents...

Analyses of redistributive policies often focus on income flows to examine the nexus between redistribution and economic growth. With strengthening signs of growing economic inequality in many countries, an increasing number of economists investigated the existence and nature of a hypothetical...

The least developed country category was established by the international community for countries requiring special support measures for dealing with their structural impediments to growth. Despite the availability of these measures and the efforts of the LDCs themselves, relatively little...