This paper reviews the resurgence of Latin America. The paper highlights that much of the region has witnessed a swift and robust recovery from the successive financial crises of 2001–02. Within two years, the region’s economic growth reached 5.6 percent in 2004, a 24-year high. Growth rates...

The past century has been marked by rapid advances in human welfare. People in most parts of the world are healthier and are living longer. While this trend is likely to continue, hopes are fading in some regions where progress slowed or stopped in the1990s, primarily as a result of the AIDS...

This paper describes economic developments in the Azerbaijan Republic during the 1990s. Real GDP declined by more than 70 percent from 1992 to 1995, by which time high inflation had eroded real incomes, the exchange rate had weakened, and international reserves were nearly depleted. In early...

This paper describes economic developments in Antigua and Barbuda during the 1990s. Economic performance deteriorated in the early 1990s. Output growth slowed to 4 percent a year in 1992–94, as activity in the tourism sector slackened and public investment fell because of a poor public savings...

Kiribati is a country in the central Pacific Ocean and one of the least-developed Pacific island economies. A large share of imports and government spending is financed from external grants and fishing license fees. The key policy development has been the adoption of a medium-term strategy,...

Two years ago, citizens in the Arab world—fired by their ideals and visions of a better life—ignited a social movement that inspired people around the globe. In Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen—the so-called Arab countries in transition—people embraced change, ushering...

Issues of taxation and development, which have long been a central concern of the IMF, have attracted wider and renewed interest in the last few years. This paper reflects on three broad lessons of experience: that developing countries differ vastly in tax matters, and in ways that are less than...

Despite its vast oil wealth, central Africa still struggles to sustain strong, inclusive economic growth or to generate sufficient employment opportunities, particularly for its fast-growing youth population. Drawing on new research, Oil Wealth in Central Africa lays out the macroeconomic and...

This survey describes the timing and main macroeconomic results of the ambitious structural reforms adopted by Chile in the middle and late 1970s and by Colombia almost a decade later in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These reforms have enabled both countries to maintain vigorous real growth...