This United Nations Policy Note on Financial Policies provides practical guidance on how to operationalize alternative equitable and employment-generating financial policies in National Development Strategies. This Policy Note has been developed in cooperation with UN agencies, and has been...

One element explaining the financial crisis is what Hyman Minsky called ‘destabilizing stability’: long periods of stability lead to increasing vulnerability. This paper argues that similar mechanisms are at work inside economics: long periods of economic progress in the core countries lead...

We present a simple model to estimate the subsidy cost embedded in a global feed-in tariff (GFIT) to simultaneously stimulate electrification and the take-up of renewable energy sources for electricity generation in developing countries. The GFIT would subsidize developing countries for...

This paper compares the experience of poverty reduction in China and India. It finds that more than economic growth per se, what has mattered crucially is the nature of the growth: whether it is associated with growing inequalities that do not allow the benefits of growth to reach the poor;...

This article evaluates and compares the forecasting performance of three international organizations: the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The annual forecasts made by the United Nations in the period of 1981-2011 are found to be fairly robust, in terms of bias...

The paper reviews the sluggish growth and inclusive developments of the Brazilian economy in the last decade. The first section analyzes the macroeconomic performance pointing export growth as the engine of growth. The second evaluates social policies and their relationship with the improvements...

Donors have developed new micro-level and local paradigms to address rural development, environmental sustainability, and poverty alleviation to bypass, ignore, and substitute for badly functioning and corrupt states. Yet, states still set the macro-economic, legal, and policy parameters or...

This paper argues that income inequality has increased in several, but not all, developed countries over the last twenty years. The increase in some countries supports the conclusion that the deregulation of markets, resulting in the concentration of economic power, is the fundamental cause as...

The present study analyzes the determinants of improving outcomes in education, health and basic sanitation and the macroeconomic trade-offs caused by scaling up public spending for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), using an integrated modelling approach. At variance with other...

The multiplicity of policies proposed to support the informal sector reflects the lack of a common definition. Although they may produce positive effects, these are limited and fail to constitute a comprehensive strategic approach. The different interpretations in the absence of a common...