Economic Premise
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The Economic Premise series summarizes good practices and key policy findings on topics related to economic policy. They are produced by the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM) Network Vice-Presidency of the World Bank.
Items in this collection
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Publication
Investment Financing in the Wake of the Crisis: The Role of Multilateral Development Banks
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-06)Sustained growth in emerging markets and developing economies requires long-term, reliable capital to finance productive investment, including in basic infrastructure. However, the availability and composition of long-term financing is constrained, partly due to fragile market conditions and cyclical weaknesses in parts of the global economy, as well as longer-term trends. This has had a particularly negative impact on developing economies that do not have reliable access to international bond markets and on sectors that have traditionally relied on bank lending (such as infrastructure). At the same time, fiscal space has been eroded by the crisis, and the direct lending capacity of Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) remains constrained. This heightens the importance of the catalytic role of the official sector in mobilizing long-term financing from the private sector by drawing on its ability to reduce and share risk. This note explores some of the ways in which MDBs are equipped to serve this purpose. -
Publication
Changing for the Better: The Path to Upper-Middle-Income Status in Uzbekistan
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-06)As a low-middle-income country with a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of US$1,715 and a population of 30 million (nearly half of all of the Central Asian population), Uzbekistan has seen stable economic progress since the mid-2000s, both in terms of growth and poverty reduction. Growth has averaged 8 percent per year since 2004 and extreme poverty has declined from 27 percent in 2000 to 15 percent in 2012. Encouraged by this outstanding growth performance, the Uzbek authorities have set an ambitious goal for the country, to join the group of upper-middle-income countries by 2030. This note discusses the main challenges that the government is likely to face and the structural transformations that the economy will have to undergo to achieve this objective. -
Publication
Subnational Debt, Insolvency, and Market Development
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-04)State and local debt and the debt of quasi-public agencies have grown in importance as a result of fiscal decentralization, rapid urbanization, and the increasing role played by private capital. However, with debt comes the risk of insolvency. This note outlines a set of aligned fiscal incentives that should be in place, as well as the design issues to be considered in debt restructuring frameworks. This note also suggests some broad lessons extracted from several country experiences with subnational debt restructuring, insolvency frameworks, and debt market development. This note suggest a range of possible lessons to consider when designing reforms to align fiscal incentives and develop a robust subnational debt framework that can be used to effectively manage the insolvency risks that will inevitably accompany the new dynamism of subnational finance. -
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Promoting Shared Prosperity in South Asia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-03)The geography of poverty has changed. More than 70 percent of the world s poor live not in low-income countries, but in middle-income countries. In 2008, nearly 570 million people lived on less than US$1.25 a day in South Asia, compared to 385 million in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, nearly 70 percent of the poor people in South Asia live in the lagging regions. Improving the living standards of these regions is crucial to achieving the goal of shared prosperity. Economic growth is not sufficient to enable the lagging regions of South Asia to catch up with the leading regions, in terms of proportional reductions in poverty rates. Policies must be specifically targeted toward achieving greater growth and poverty reduction in these regions. One particular policy channel to achieve shared prosperity is pro-poor fiscal transfers. For the most part, interstate fiscal transfers in South Asian countries do promote equity through transfer of resources to poorer regions, but this outcome usually occurs when pro-poor redistribution has explicit rules and transparency. Further, simply directing financial resources to lagging regions may not be sufficient, and may need to be complemented with increases in capacity, transparency, and participation to facilitate accountability at the local level. Policy makers need to boost shared prosperity and take another look at the millennium development goal paradigm. A new lens is needed- one that shifts the focus of policy from national to subnational level, and from leading to lagging regions, where poverty, gender disparity, and human misery are concentrated. -
Publication
The Brazilian Competitiveness Cliff
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-02)Brazilian exports of goods and services have grown sharply in recent years, with sales nearly three times higher in 2010 than in 2000. However, Brazil faces considerable competitiveness challenges: its export performance depends mostly on favorable geographical and sector composition effects. Such challenges increased after the recent global economic crisis. A recent slowdown in industrial exports, production, and investments seems related to supply-side difficulties stemming from a wide range of inefficiencies and rising costs, rather than insufficient demand. Although a stronger currency is one of the factors behind the lower competitiveness of Brazil's manufacturing exports, sluggish productivity performance, lack of dynamism at the firm level, and a real wage uptrend seem to explain a significant part of the overall loss of competitiveness. This diagnostic reinforces the urgency of resuming the agenda of microeconomic reforms, increasing the investment-to-Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio, and advancing toward better-skilled human capital. -
Publication
Service with a Smile
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-11)Can service be a growth escalator? The world is experiencing its third industrial revolution, and services are at the forefront of this revolution. Services have already surpassed industry as a source of economic growth and job creation, in both developed and developing economies. In the industrial sector, technologies have matured and employment is shrinking. However, services are getting more sophisticated and jobs are expanding. Services growth is also more inclusive and sustainable. It increases the participation of women in the labor force and places a lighter burden on natural resources. The promise of the services revolution is that countries do not need to wait to get started with rapid development. There is a new boat that development latecomers can take. -
Publication
The Euro Experience and Lessons for Latin America
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-10)It is natural to think, and economic theory predicts, that integration in an economic zone like Europe fosters growth and development, particularly when integration refers to trade opening among countries. It is expected that openness (to trade) promotes growth and being closed (to trade) deters it. Trade theory also concludes that (trade) integration is beneficial to all countries, large and small, and that small economies are likely to benefit relatively more from integration. This note reviews the development of the European Union's euro zone and its impacts on growth and finds lessons that can be useful for Latin America. -
Publication
Chasing the Shadows : How Significant is Shadow Banking in Emerging Markets?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-09)Broadly defined as credit intermediation involving entities and activities outside the regular banking system, shadow banking raises important policy concerns. Given significant challenges with data availability, the size, nature and significance of shadow banking in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) are even less discussed and understood. Shadow banking in EMDEs generally does not involve long, complex, opaque chains of intermediation, as is often the case in advanced economies. Nonetheless, it can pose systemic risks, both directly, as its importance in the total financial system grows (with the concomitant credit, market, and liquidity risks that its participants undertake), and indirectly through its interconnectedness with the regulated banking system. At the same time, shadow banks also play an important role in channeling alternative funding sources to EMDEs, especially as deleveraging pressures from European banks continue. This suggests that policy makers need to manage trade-offs carefully to ensure that shadow banks provide alternative but safe sources of funding to the private sector without generating additional systemic risks. Based on a snapshot of selected EMDEs in East Asia and in Central and Eastern Europe, and subject to caveats dictated by limited data availability, the shadow banking system is relatively small in most EMDEs, but has grown markedly in recent years, reaching a not insignificant share of the financial system in some countries, while remaining largely unregulated. -
Publication
South-South Cooperation : How Mongolia Learned from Chile on Managing a Mineral-Rich Economy
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-09)Mongolia's mineral-rich economy was hit extremely hard by the global downturn during 2008-9, when copper prices plunged, external demand fell, and growth collapsed. The shock exposed serious underlying weaknesses in the management of the country's natural resource wealth, particularly the lack of policies to insulate the economy from commodity cycles and real exchange rate appreciation pressures, an inadequate safety net, and poor public investment planning. These issues gained further urgency with the signing of a major copper mining deal in 2009 that further increased the country's mineral dependence. As part of its reform efforts and with the assistance of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government began an intensive south-south exchange, notably with Chile, another major copper producer, on strengthening the policy environment. The dialogue proved critical in the passage of several landmark laws within the space of a few years, including a fiscal stability law modeled after Chile, and the accompanying integrated budget and procurement and social welfare laws. These reforms will be crucial in managing the boom-bust cycle of mineral prices and mitigating Dutch disease effects by anchoring a prudent countercyclical fiscal policy, strengthening public financial management, increasing savings, and providing a fiscally sustainable social safety net targeted to the poor. -
Publication
European Bank Deleveraging : Implications for Emerging Market Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-04)Just before the 2008-9 global financial crises, policy makers were concerned about the rapid growth of bank credit, particularly in Europe; now, worry centers on a potential global credit crunch led by European banking institutions. While recognizing that concrete evidence is limited by significant data gaps and lags, this note discusses the dynamics of European bank deleveraging and possible implications for emerging market economies (EMEs). Overall, the information available as of early 2012 shows a marked deterioration of credit conditions across Europe. Data also suggest that spillover effects are already being felt around the globe and imply significant channels through which deleveraging could have disruptive short and long-term consequences for credit conditions in EMEs, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). However, the significant liquidity support provided by the European Central Bank (ECB) since December may be a 'game changer,' at least in the short term, because it has helped revive markets and limited the risk of disorderly deleveraging. The extent, speed, and impact of European bank deleveraging will henceforth depend largely on the evolution of market conditions, which in turn are guided by the ultimate impact of ECB liquidity support, attainment of sovereign debt sustainability and fiscal convergence within the euro zone, and credibility of the European rescue fund as an effective firewall against contagion.