This Selected Issues paper studies Luxembourg’s economic growth performance of the past two decades with a view to shedding light on the growth prospects and fiscal implications. The paper investigates whether the recent weakness in activity is largely transitory or whether it heralds a...

This Selected Issues paper and Statistical Appendix reviews Mozambique’s impressive economic growth, its composition, and its impact on poverty reduction over the past decade. The paper highlights that improvements in total factor productivity, resulting from a stable macroeconomic...

Macroeconomic policy decisions in real-time are based the assessment of current and future economic conditions. These assessments are made difficult by the presence of incomplete and noisy data. The problem is more acute for emerging market economies, where most economic data are released...

Following a brief review of the recent history of GDP-linked instruments, this paper proposes a set of tools to examine the quantitative properties of GDP-linked warrants. It argues that trigger conditions should be clearly identifiable and payment amounts easily calculable. Based on a design...

Our answer: Not so well. We reached that conclusion after reviewing recent research on the role of technology as a source of economic fluctuations. The bulk of the evidence suggests a limited role for aggregate technology shocks, pointing instead to demand factors as the main force behind the...

In the spirit of what is known as business cycle accounting, this paper finds that the investment wedge-the gap between household's rate of intertemporal substitution and the marginal product of capital-is large and quantitatively significant in explaining China's and India's growth. Specific...

This chapter reviews developments in GDP over the past several decades. The analysis shows that accumulation of labor and capital explains the bulk of overall output growth since 1990, with changes in total factor productivity playing only a minor role. Moreover, while increases in total factor...

This paper presents a simultaneous assessment of the relationship between economic performance and three groups of economic reforms: domestic finance, trade, and the capital account. Among these, domestic financial reforms, and trade reforms, are robustly associated with economic growth, but...

This Selected Issues paper on Sri Lanka reviews several issues that highlight both Sri Lanka’s accomplishments and their policy constraints amidst a protracted period of civil conflict and political instability. High intermediation costs have held back development of the financial sector...

A favorable external environment coupled with prudent policies fostered output growth in most of Latin America during the last decade. But, what were the drivers of this strong growth performance from the supply side and will this momentum be sustainable in the years ahead? We address these...