While South Asia has gone a long way in diversifying their economies, there is substantial scope to do more. Some countries - India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka - can build on their existing production capabilities; others - Bangladesh, Bhutan, and the Maldives - would need to undertake a more...

In recent years, Fund staff has prepared cross-country analyses of macroeconomic vulnerabilities in low-income countries, focusing on the risk of sharp declines in economic growth and of debt distress. We discuss routes to broadening this focus by adding several macroeconomic and macrofinancial...

The switching of health insurance plans and health care utilization are potentially correlated with both observable and unobservable information. This paper presents a two-period model of health care utilization, and attempts to account for unobserved heterogeneity that simultaneously affects...