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This paper is Part I of a two-volume study conducted as a part of the IMF's ongoing process of evaluating its lending facilities. It focuses on IMF-supported programs and macroeconomic performance during 1988-92, reflecting information available through the end of 1993. Part I provides an overview of the experiences during the arrangements reviewed: it describes the initial conditions faced in these countries, the adjustment strategies adopted, the degree to which programs were implemented, and the extent of sustained adjustment experienced.
Analyzing the experience of Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 'Lessons from NAFTA' aims to provide guidance to Latin American and Caribbean countries considering free trade agreements with the United States. The authors conclude that the treaty raised external trade and foreign investment inflows and had a modest effect on Mexico's average income per person. It is likely that the treaty also helped achieve a modest reduction in poverty and an improvement in job quality. This book will be of interest to scholars and policymakers interested in international trade and development.
This study presents a notion of current-account sustainability that explicitly considers, in addition to intertemporal solvency, a willingness to pay and to lend. It argues that this notion of sustainability provides a useful framework for understanding the variety of country experiences with protracted current-account imbalances. Based on this notion, the authors identify a number of potential sustainability indicators related to the structure of the economy and the economic policy stance. They use these indicators in the evaluation of the experience of a number of countries that have run persistent current-account imbalances and ask whether they help to discriminate between countries that underwent an external crisis and those that did not.
This is the ninth edition of the annual report, prepared by the World Bank's Development Prospects Group. The series provides an annual assessment of global economic prospects as they affect developing countries and analyzes the links between developing countries and the world economy, particularly in the areas of trade, foreign direct investment, and other capital flows. In addition, each Global Economic Prospects addresses a few important topics, such as the expansion of global production and the costs of making the transition to a more open economy, as discussed in last year's report. Global Economic Prospects is part of an ongoing attempt to understand the dynamics of globalization, including its promises and its potential pitfalls. Includes statistical section of global economic indicators.
East Asia: The Road to Recovery carefully analyzes the events that led to the current economic crisis in East Asia, the tremendous effects the crisis has had on the Asian economies, and prospects for the region's future. Chapters in the book cover the region's trade and competitiveness; the financial sector at the center of the crisis; the corporate sector's financial performance and governance; the social crisis resulting from the financial crash; protection of the environment as well as the people; and policies for sustainable recovery. This book not only discusses how this catastrophe could ever have taken place, but more importantly, what can be done to ensure that it won't happen again.
Empirical analysis of two decades of pioneering pension and social security reform in Latin America and the Caribbean shows that much has been achieved, but that critical challenges remain. In tackling this unfinished agenda, a great deal can be learned from the reform experience of countries in the region. 'Keeping the Promise,' produced by the chief economist's office for the Latin America and Caribbean region at the World Bank, evaluates policy reforms in 12 countries, points to successes and shortcomings, and proposes priorities and options for future reform.
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A simple model shows that when an outside agent forces a reduction in a government's conventional deficit (debt accumulation), the government will respond by lowering its asset accumulation or by increasing hidden liabilities. That leaves net worth unchanged, so fiscal adjustment is an illusion.Fiscal adjustment is an illusion when it lowers the budget deficit or public debt but leaves the government's net worth unchanged, says Easterly.Conventional measures of the budget deficit largely measure the change in explicit public sector liabilities (debt). A more appropriate measure of the deficit would be the change in public sector net worth, but many criticize this concept as impossible to mea...