The simmering sovereign debt crisis in the Euro Zone represents a looming threat to the recovery of the world economy and could lead to a renewed global financial crisis. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the root causes of the crisis in Europe and assess the extent to which it was driven...

The new structural economics argues that the best way to upgrade a country's endowment structure is to develop its industries at any specific time according to the comparative advantages determined by its given endowment structure at that time. The economy will be most competitive, the economic...

The Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) brings fresh, innovative perspectives to key problems of development. By providing a forum in which policy makers, academics and leading researchers focus on a common theme, ABCDE plays an important role in advancing debate and shaping...

The Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) is a leading forum for advanced, forward-looking research on important development issues. Each year, the ABCDE brings policy makers and politicians together with researchers from academe, international organizations, and think...

This paper provides an historical overview of both the evolution of the economic performance of the developing world and the evolution of economic thought on development policy. The 20th century was broadly characterized by divergence between high-income countries and the developing world, with...

China's government economic stimulus package in 2008-09 appears to have worked well. It seems to have been about the right size, included a number of appropriate components, and was well timed. Its subnational component was designed to maximize the impact of the stimulus package on the economy...

This paper discusses the causes of the middle-income trap in Latin America and the Caribbean, identifies the challenges and opportunities for Latin America that come from China's rise, and draws lessons from New Structural Economics and the Growth Identification and Facilitation Framework to...

Biographical note: Justin Yifu Lin is founding director and professor at the China Centre for Economic Research at Peking University. From 2008 to 2012, he served as chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank. His many books include "Demystifying the Chinese Economy" and...

For decades, many researchers argued that economics had nothing to fear from enriching itself with lessons and advances from other disciplines. Unfortunately, these suggestions were either neglected or dismissed upfront in what was then arbitrarily considered mainstream economics. The global...

Traditional narratives of external imbalances have focused on the analysis of national accounts, trade flows, and financial flows. They have generated two opposing views of the current situation of the world economy: on one side, a prudent, if not pessimistic view considers large imbalances as...