Resources

Governments often promote inward foreign investment to encourage technology “spillovers” from foreign to domestic firms. Using panel data on Venezuelan plants, we find that foreign equity participation is positively correlated with plant produc- tivity (the “own-plant”...Read More

This paper aims at assessing barriers to service provision in the banking, telecom (fixed and mobile), insurance and transport (air and maritime) sectors of four MENA countries, by including both trade and domestic restrictions. The qualitative information gathered is...Read More

This paper assesses the extent to which foreign direct investment in developing countries crowds in or crowds out domestic investment. We develop a theoretical model of investment that includes an FDI variable and we proceed to test it with panel data for the period...Read More

Reflecting on the specialized literature and practices, the major variables governing the investment climate in the Arab countries, may be summarized, from the inward investment perspective, as follows: Part One: Political Components, Part Two: Economic and Social...Read More

This Staff Discussion Note finds that education and health spending have risen during IMF-supported programs at a faster pace than in developing countries as a whole. The analysis is based on the most comprehensive dataset assembled thus far for this purpose, with data...Read More

This year’s report features a record number of 144 economies, and thus continues to be the most comprehensive assessment of its kind. It contains a detailed profile for each of the economies included in the study as well as an extensive section of data tables with...Read More

This report explores the poverty and distributional effects of a set of recent fiscal reforms by the Government of Jamaica. It finds that relatively few households are likely to experience negative shocks to their in- come or consumption as a result of the reform...Read More

High oil prices are again transforming oil-exporting economies. Economies that were moribund when oil hovered in the $20s for most of the 1990s—and at risk of bankruptcy when oil dipped to $10 a barrel in 1998—are now booming. A new generation of skyscrapers is rising...Read More

The paper finds that the degree of financial development varies across the region. Some countries have relatively well- developed banking sectors and regulatory and supervisory regimes. However, across the region, more needs to be done to reinforce the institutional...Read More

This paper examines the policies that have been proposed to solve the financial and sovereign debt crisis in Europe, against the backdrop of what the real underlying problems are: extreme differences in competitiveness; the absence of a growth strategy; sovereign,...Read More