This paper advances an alternative explanation of the large external imbalance between the United States and China, and its linkages to the current global financial crisis. We show that US current account deficits dated back long before the emergence of China's recent large trade surpluses, with...

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...

Firms in developing countries face numerous and serious constraints on their growth, ranging from corruption to lack of infrastructure to inability to access finance. Countries lack the resources to remove all the constraints at once and so would be better off removing the most binding one...

La strategie de la Banque mondiale pour l'avenir de l'Afrique reconnait l'importance centrale de l'industrialisation de l'Afrique subsaharienne et la creation d'emplois productifs pour les Africains, industrialisation et creation d'emplois qui sont de longue date la preoccupation des leaders et...

This paper draws on both successful and failing cases of industrialization in China to analyse the role of local governments in fostering the growth of light manufacturing. The broad spectrum of support types and the intimate knowledge of enterprise conditions by these local governments make...