Commission on Growth and Development
75 items available
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The Growth Commission’s reports identify the ingredients that, if used in the right country-specific recipe, can deliver growth and help lift populations out of poverty. The Commission, consisting of 19 experienced leaders and 2 Nobel prize-winning economists, has released several commission reports, thematic volumes, and background working papers. The spring 2010 volume is the final book from the Commission. The Commission is succeeded by The Growth Dialogue.
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Publication
Africa's Growth Turnaround: From Fewer Mistakes to Sustained Growth
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009)After stagnating for much of its postcolonial history, economic performance in Sub?Saharan Africa has markedly improved. Since 1995, average economic growth has been close to 5 percent per year. Has Africa finally turned the corner? This paper analyzes growth accelerations and decelerations-that is, country level deviations from long?run trend growth. Seen from this perspective, Africa's record of slow and volatile growth reflects a pattern of offsetting accelerations and declines, and much of the improvement in economic performance in Africa post 1995 turns out to be due to a substantial reduction in the frequency and severity of growth decelerations. The fall in economic declines since 1995 is largely due to better macroeconomic policies, but changes in such 'growth determinants' as investment, export diversification, and productivity have not accompanied the growth boom. Lack of change in these variables and the significant role played by natural resources in sparking growth accelerations suggest that Africa's growth recovery was fragile, even before the recent global economic crisis. The paper concludes by setting out four elements of a strategy that can help move Africa from fewer mistakes to sustained growth: managing natural resources better, pushing nontraditional exports, building the African private sector, and creating new skills. -
Publication
A New Bretton Woods?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009)The Bretton Woods sisters, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (henceforth the World Bank) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), were set up in 1944. The original purpose of the former was to help post-Second World War reconstruction; the purpose of the latter was to help revive global trade while averting the 'beggar-thy-neighbor' exchange rate policies that characterized the interwar years. Over the years, the World Bank has refocused on helping poor countries grow while the IMF broadly attempts to foster country policies that ensure macroeconomic stability and limit adverse spillovers to the rest of the world. While these roles still remain, their nature has changed somewhat. In particular, given the development of financial markets around the world, the primary role of these institutions has moved to shaping, guiding, supplementing, and stabilizing the flow of private finance rather than substituting fully for it. This paper focuses on the new ways multilateral institutions may have to perform old tasks, as well as the ways they could perform new tasks such as slowing climate change. Critical to their transformation will be the attitudes of the countries that play the largest role in their governance, as well as reform of the governance process itself. -
Publication
Political Competition, Policy Making, and the Quality of Public Policies in Costa Rica
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008)This paper uses a case study of Costa Rica to identify the reasons why democracy is conducive for development. By the mid-twentieth century, Costa Rica had begun to depart from the all-too-common mixture of political instability and economic stagnation characteristic of much of the developing world. This paper claims that this country has benefited from better-than-average public policies, a conclusion based upon an original assessment of policy effectiveness and a major comparative ranking of state policies. It largely rejects the interpretation that uncommon development performance stems from institutions created during the colonial period and instead emphasizes how unending political stalemates gradually made the struggle for power more democratic. A central conclusion of this paper is that political competition-as well as steady economic growth rates and development, more generally-interact with and reinforce each other so that the exercise of power foments rather than retards economic growth. -
Publication
Leadership for Growth, Development, and Poverty Reduction: An African Viewpoint and Experience
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008)The point of this paper is to emphasize the importance and role of leadership for African growth, development, and poverty reduction. It is also an attempt to project a more objective assessment of leadership issues during the first three to four decades of African independence. Agreeing on shared responsibilities for Africa's failures in its early years will enable all who want to take part in the continent's renewal to focus on the partnership that is now needed to close a sad chapter in Africa's history, and open a new one. The core elements of such a partnership have evolved in the last decade, and this paper argues passionately for the political will, in Africa and outside, for their realization. -
Publication
The Political Economy of Reform during the Ramos Administration (1992-98)
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008)This paper is one of several case studies prepared for the World Bank. The objective of the case studies is to provide the Commission on Growth and Development insights on the policy reform process in developing countries that give rise to economic growth. In contrast to other countries where economic reforms ushered in a long period of sustained growth, there is no such episode in Philippine economic history. Since the restoration of democracy in 1986, the Philippines under the Ramos administration came closest to breaking out of its 'sick man of Asia' image. The confidence generated by the administration among local and international players and analysts resulted from wide-ranging reforms rooted primarily in a sound macroeconomic and investor-friendly regime as well as global competitiveness. This study is not intended as a scorecard of the Ramos Administration. Rather, it concentrates on three specific sector reforms during the Ramos administration that demonstrate the elements of successful reform processes. These reforms not only helped to free up demands on public finances then- considered, in today's parlance, the 'binding constraint' on needed public investment and reduced risk premium to encourage private investments-but over time brought gains, some unforeseen and broader in terms of positive spillover effects on the rest of the economy, and linkage to overall growth today. -
Publication
Political Leadership and Economic Reform: The Brazilian Experience in the Context of Latin America
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008)Brazil grew 2.4 percent per year on average in the last 25 years-somewhat less than Latin America, a good deal less than the world, far less than the emerging countries of Asia in the same period, and indeed far less than Brazil itself in previous decades. If anything stands out favorably in recent Brazilian experience, it is not growth but stabilization and the successful opening of the economy. The purpose of this paper is more modest. It is limited to setting out the authors' particular view of recent efforts to consolidate democracy in Brazil while controlling inflation and resuming economic growth. At the same time the paper presents, as objectively as possible, some thoughts on the limits but also the relevance of action by political leaders to set a course and circumvent obstacles to that process. Here and there, the paper refers to the experiences of other Latin American countries, especially Argentina, Chile, and Mexico, not to offer a full fledged comparative analysis but merely to note contrasts and similarities that may shed light on the peculiarities of the Brazilian case and suggest themes for a more wide-ranging exchange of views. -
Publication
Economic Growth and Development in Malaysia: Policy Making and Leadership
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008)Malaysia is a multiethnic, upper-middle-income country that has relied heavily on income from its natural resources to engineer successful diversification into manufacturing and sharply increased incomes for all ethnic groups. This paper examines the role of the policy-making process and national leadership in effecting this structural change and growth with equity. It discusses the government's role in transforming corporate ownership patterns while nurturing industrial enterprises into niche products within complex value-added chains. At the same time, the paper underscores the difficulties and costs of attempting to move into areas where an economy has no strong advantages, in this case heavy industries. Privatization is seen to have been a powerful tool for expanding private enterprise despite limited entrepreneurial skills, but it is questionable as a sustainable strategy; the aggressive formation of new firms seems to offer better long-term prospects. An appropriate regime of policy making and implementation is required, characterized by political determination, stability, high attention to growth with equity, experimentation, and an ability to learn through implementation, both at home and from the experience of others. These are key factors accounting for the relative success of Malaysia. Nothing in the Malaysian experience suggests that it is possible or desirable to undertake reforms serially; in fact, the evidence suggests that the "reform cluster" approach to policy implementation is more effective because it addresses several coordination problems at the same time. -
Publication
Growth in Senegal: The 1995-2005 Experience
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008)Following several years of disappointing economic performance, Senegal has made an important turnaround, with real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth averaging over 5 percent annually during 1995-2005. This paper shows that macroeconomic and structural reforms are key factors explaining this recovery. Drivers of sound economic policy decisions in Senegal have included enhanced democratic processes, political commitment to the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), and donor community conditionalities. -
Publication
Economic Reforms, Growth, and Governance: The Political Economy Aspects of Bangladesh's Development Surprise
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008)Bangladesh has in recent decades achieved reasonably rapid economic growth and significant progress in social development indicators despite many impediments: the desperate initial conditions after gaining independence, lack of resources, natural disasters, widespread corruption, and a record of systemic governance failure. By identifying the sources of growth stimulus and the drivers of social transformation, the paper addresses what it calls Bangladesh's development surprise. The policy-making process is analyzed as the outcome of incentives created by patronage politics as opposed to the compulsion for the government to play an effective developmental role. The paper examines the governance-growth nexus as affecting the pace and quality of growth and its inclusiveness. If the governance environment has been barely adequate to cope with an economy breaking out of stagnation and extreme poverty, it increasingly may prove a barrier to putting the economy firmly on a path of modernization and global integration. Bangladesh's experience also shows that it is possible to make rapid initial progress in many social development indicators by creating awareness through successful social mobilization campaigns and by reaping the gains from affordable low-cost solutions. Further progress, however, will require increased public social spending and improved quality of public service delivery. -
Publication
Leadership, Policy Making, and Economic Growth in African Countries: The Case of Nigeria
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008)Nigeria's long-run growth performance has been extremely poor. Between 1960 and 2000, real income per capita grew at only 0.43 percent per year. The situation improved between 2001 and 2006 when real per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at an average annual rate of 4.2 percent. This paper demonstrates that the superior growth performance during 2001-06 is largely attributable to the impact of better leadership and economic policy making. The improved performance of the economy after 2003 arose from implementing a comprehensive economic reform program focusing on four main areas: macroeconomic reform; structural reform; governance and institutional reform; and public sector reform. The reforms, backstopped by improved oil revenue management, monetary policy implementation, and debt management, improved overall macroeconomic policy making. This resulted in real GDP growth averaging 7.1 percent per year between 2003 and 2006, an inflation rate of 10 percent in 2006, foreign exchange reserves of US$45 billion in 2006, and total external debt of only US$5 billion in 2006. Clearly, between 1960 and 2000, Nigeria's policy choices were poor, and the reforms that sought to correct them were plagued by inconsistencies, policy reversals, and lack of coherence. In contrast, due to good leadership, the reforms adopted in 2003 were consistent and have been implemented in a coherent manner.