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March 7, 2023

Macroeconomics and Growth

Growth is the essential ingredient for sustained poverty reduction. The Macroeconomics and Growth Research Program focuses on identifying the contribution of policies and institutional changes to the diversity in growth and aggregate economic performance around the world. Studies are organized around three themes: foundations of growth, macroeconomic stability and international finance, and governance and political economy.


FEATURED RESEARCH

Partial view of the Long Term Growth Model book cover. It depicts the Trappen van Strada Reale in Valetta, Malta. 1900-1910

The Long Term Growth Model: Fundamentals, Extensions, and Applications

Policy Research Talk, Mar 21, 2023

Economic growth is the foundation on which social and economic development rests. It helps to create jobs, generate income opportunities, and reduce poverty. In this Policy Research Talk, World Bank economists Norman Loayza and Steven Pennings summarize some of the key findings of the new book The Long Term Growth Model: Fundamentals, Extensions, and Applications.

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Improving the Multilateral Pandemic Response

Policy Research Talk, June 13, 2022

The world is transitioning out of the crisis phase of the COVID-19 outbreak, aided by immunity from vaccination and prior infection. In this Policy Research Talk, World Bank economist Tristan Reed assessed the merit of this criticism, highlighting successes, misunderstandings, and lessons learned about how multilateral institutions can more effectively respond to future public health emergencies of international concern.

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Long-Term Growth in Developing Countries

Policy Research Talk, December 14, 2021

In this Policy Research Talk, World Bank economist Steven Pennings presented the Long-Term Growth Model (LTGM) and a suite of papers and tools with various extensions to simulate and analyze future long-term growth scenarios in developing countries with sufficiently low data requirements, and which can be readily applied to almost every country.

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The Human Capital Index 2020 Update: Human Capital in the Time of COVID-19

January 2021

This report updates the Human Capital Index launched in 2018 using health and education data available as of March 2020. It documents new evidence on trends, examples of successes, and analytical work on the utilization of human capital using new data collected before the global onset of COVID-19.

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From Micro to Macro: Using Micro Data to Understand Macroeconomics and Public Policy

e-Seminar, May 7, 2021, Chile Research and Development Center

In this online seminar, Marcela Eslava, Roberto Fattal Jaef, Federico Huneeus provided examples of how firm data can shed light on macroeconomic issues such as growth, inequality, market structure, misallocation of capital, production networks, and productivity.Jose de Gregorio led the discussion. This event was held in Spanish with a focus on Latin America.

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From Micro to Macro: Entry Barriers, Misallocation, and Aggregate Productivity

Policy Research Talk, February 23, 2021

In this talk, World Bank economist Roberto Fattal Jaef discussed the role of distortions in firms’ business environment that reduce competition, innovation, and allocative efficiency.


LATEST WORKING PAPERS

On the Welfare Costs of Premature Deindustrialization
Roberto N. Fattal Jaef
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 10344, March 2023

Effective Tax Rates and Firm Size
Pierre Bachas, Anne Brockmeyer, Roel Dom, Camille Semelet
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 10312, February 2023

Understanding Home Bias in Procurement : Evidence from National and Subnational Governments
Manuel García-Santana, Marta Santamaría
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 10311, February 2023

Cartels, Antitrust Enforcement, and Industry Performance: Evidence from Mexico
Tristan Reed, Mariana De La Paz Pereira Lopez, Ana Francisca Urrutia Arrieta, Leonardo Iacovone
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 10269, December 2022

Deconstructing the Missing Middle: Informality and Growth of Firms in Sub-Saharan Africa
Kaleb Girma Abreha, Xavier Cirera, Elwyn Adriaan Robin Davies, Roberto N. Fattal Jaef, Hibret Belete Maemir
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 10233, November 2022

More Working Papers


LATEST JOURNAL ARTICLES

Financing vaccine equity: funding for day-zero of the next pandemic
Ruchir AgarwalTristan Reed
Oxford Review of Economic Policy, vol. 38, December 2022

International reserves and central bank independence
Agustin Samano
Journal of International Economics vol. 139, November 2022

Using Individual-Level Randomized Treatment to Learn about Market Structure
Tristan Reed
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics vol. 14, no. 4, October 2022

Large international corporate bonds: Investor behavior and firm responses
Charles Calomiris, Mauricio Larrain, Sergio Schmukler, Tomas Williams
Journal of International Economics vol. 137, July 2022

Entry Barriers, Idiosyncratic Distortions, and the Firm Size Distribution
Roberto N. Fattal-Jaef
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics vol. 14, no. 2, April 2022


BOOKS AND REPORTS 

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The Economics of Water Scarcity in The Midde East and North Africa: Institutional Solutions
Dominick de Waal, Stuti Khemani, Andrea Barone, Edoardo Borgomeo, Amal Talbi, Rajesh Advani, Sally Zgheib, Mili Varughese, Mohamad Hamid, Luke Gates, Elvira Broeks Motta, October 2022

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is facing an acute lack of water for life and livelihoods. Despite significant infrastructure investments over decades, countries in the region are grappling with unprecedented, ever-worsening water scarcity due to population growth, climate change and socioeconomic development. By 2030, average annual per capita water resource availability across MENA will fall below the absolute water scarcity threshold of 500 cubic meters per person per year.

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Going Viral: COVID-19 and the Accelerated Transformation of Jobs in Latin America and the Caribbean
Guillermo Beylis, Roberto Fattal Jaef, Michael Morris, Ashwini Rekha Sebastian, and Rishabh Sinha, Washington, DC: World Bank, September 2020

This book focuses on three important pre-pandemic trends observed in the labor market in the region—premature deindustrialization, servicification of the economy, and task automation—that have been accelerated by the crisis.

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The Rise of Domestic Capital Markets for Corporate Financing
Facundo Abraham, Juan J. Cortina, and Sergio L. Schmukler, Washington, DC: World Bank, June 2019

The case of East Asia shows that domestic markets have been a key driver of the observed trends in capital market financing since the early 2000s. 

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Making Politics Work for Development: Harnessing Transparency and Citizen Engagement
Stuti Khemani, Ernesto Dal Bó, Claudio Ferraz, Frederico Finan, Corinne Stephenson, Adesinaola Odugbemi, Dikshya Thapa, and Scott Abrahams, Policy Research Report, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016

The forces of transparency and citizen political engagement are on the rise, and together hold the potential to make politics work for rather than against economic development.

More Books and Reports »




MANAGER

Sergio Schmukler

Research Manager, Macroeconomics and Growth

Research Staff Arrow