This paper argues that natural resource abundance creates opportunities for rent-seeking behavior and is an important factor in determining a country’s level of corruption. In a simple growth model, we illustrate the interrelationships between natural resources, corruption, and economic...

This paper singles out the key short-term risks and medium-term challenges related to finance and convergence in emerging Europe. With the help of a general equilibrium theoretical framework, the paper identifies pragmatic directions for policymakers. While the ""speed limits"" to capital...

Financial liberalization has been a controversial issue as there is little empirical evidence for its positive effects on economic growth. However, we find sizable welfare gains, 1 to 28 percent of permanent consumption though, consistent with the literature, the gain in the economic growth is...

After a period of exceptionally strong economic performance, Guyana''s growth has stagnated since 1998. The paper tries to identify the factors that can explain this dramatic deterioration in economic performance. The paper first attempts to explain the decline of growth with a growth accounting...

The Dominican Republic and Haiti share the island of Hispaniola and are broadly similar in terms of geography and historical institutions, yet their growth performance has diverged remarkably. The countries had the same per capita real GDP in 1960 but, by 2005, the Dominican Republic''s per...

We criticize existing empirical results on the detrimental effects of natural resource dependence on the rate of economic growth after controlling for institutional quality, openness, and initial income. These results do not survive once we use instrumental variables techniques to correct for...

Lucas (2004) asserts that ""Of the tendencies that are harmful to sound economics, the most seductive, and in my opinion the most poisonous, is to focus on questions of distribution. The potential for improving the lives of poor people by finding different ways of distributing current production...

The paper analyzes Jamaica''s experience of low growth despite consistently high investment. Cross-country analysis provides evidence of a significant and negative relationship between total public debt and productivity growth. Looking at the specific channels through which high debt affects...

This paper discusses the influence of economic growth on the equilibrium unemployment rate (NAIRU). It examines how income distribution and the NAIRU are influenced by capital formation, technical progress, and labor force expansion, and how these factors’ impact depends on the elasticity of...

The latest World Economic Outlook reports economic activity was surprisingly resilient through the global disinflation of 2022-23, despite significant central bank interest rate hikes to restore price stability. Risks to the global outlook are now broadly balanced compared with last year....