The Schumpeterian process of "creative destruction" is an essential ingredient of a dynamic economy. In many countries around the world, however, this process is weakened by pervasive regulation of product and factor markets. This book documents the regulatory obstacles faced by firms,...

When growth-promoting spending is cut so much that the present value of future government revenues falls by more than the immediate improvement in the cash deficit, fiscal adjustment becomes like walking up the down escalator. Although short-term cash flows matter, too tight a focus on them...

The recent global financial crisis has shaken the confidence of industrial and developing countries alike in the very blueprint of the financial and macropolicies that underlie the Western capitalist systems. In an effort to contain the crisis from spreading, the authorities in the United States...

An adequate supply of infrastructure services has long been viewed by both academics and policy makers as a key ingredient for economic development. Sub-Saharan Africa ranks consistently at the bottom of all developing regions in terms of infrastructure performance, and an increasing number of...

This paper documents and compares the redistributive performance of Latin American and Western European fiscal systems. Three main conclusions emerge: (i) taxes and transfers widen the difference in income inequality between the two country groups, because (ii) the redistributive impact of the...

Over the 1990s macroeconomic policies improved in most developing countries, but the growth dividend from this improvement fell short of expectations, and a policy agenda focused on stability turned out to be associated with a multiplicity of financial crises. This article examines the contents...