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The debt crisis of 1982 caused serious economic disruptions in most developing countries. Reform, Recovery, and Growth explains why some of these countries have recovered from the debt crisis, while more than a decade later others continue to stagnate. Among the questions addressed are: What are the requirements for a stabilization policy that reduces inflation in a reasonable amount of time at an acceptable cost? What are the effects of structural reforms, especially trade liberalization, deregulation, and privatization, on growth in the short and long runs? How do macroeconomic instability and adjustment policies affect income distribution and poverty? How does the specific design of structural adjustment efforts affect results? In this companion to Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin America, the authors confirm that macroeconomic stability has a positive effect on income distribution. The volume presents case studies that describe in detail the stabilization experiences in Brazil, Israel, Argentina, and Bolivia, and also includes discussion of Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Turkey.
Policymakers in Latin America increasingly are turning to policies that have high economic rates of return and a favorable impact on income distribution. By providing financial services to small businesses and poor households -which normally lack such services- credit unions help secure growth with equity. The challenges faced by Latin America's credit unions today are likely to force them to further modernize and consolidate, fine tune their inherent advantages, improve mechanisms for prudential regulation, and find ways to increase their share of low and middle-income markets. Safe Money presents the new thinking on how credit unions can compete effectively in modern financial markets while still retaining their social mission.
World Bank Technical Paper No. 361. Education has emerged as an essential component of the transition to a market economy in Central and Eastern Europe. Although the countries of the region inherited broadly accessible education systems, the legacies of central planning have constrained the systems from fully adjusting to market economies. This study examines empirical trends in access to and financing of education in nine Central and East European countries by drawing on the findings of a World Bank project that examined the social risks facing people and the policy responses taken by governments since 1989. Chapters address access and participation, the labor market, financing, and staff in the education sector.
Incorporates global perspective but focuses on southeastern Europe, a key arena for microfinance and microcredit programs --
"The authors look at the depth of the financial sector in Bogota in terms of the "financial exclusion" of those, particularly poorer citizens, who operate without accounts in formal financial institutions-the unbanked. They begin with a review of the overall decline in financial intermediation from 1998 to 2003, which explains, in part, the high percentage of unbanked-61 percent in a recent household survey in Bogota. The authors next look at the banking system today, concluding that the present challenge is to increase financial intermediation overall, especially with the poor. Their analysis shows that Colombia's banks provide costly services mainly catered toward high-income clients. Exis...
The IMF’s principal statistical publication, International Financial Statistics (IFS) Online, is the standard source of international statistics on all aspects of international and domestic finance. For most countries, IFS Online reports data on balance of payments, international investment position, international liquidity, monetary and financial statistics, exchange rates, interest rates, prices, production, government accounts, national accounts, and population. Updated monthly.