Country Economic Memorandum
239 items available
Permanent URI for this collection
Items in this collection
1 - 5 of 5
-
Publication
From Swimming in Sand to High and Sustainable Growth: A Roadmap to Reduce Distortions in the Allocation of Resources and Talent in the Pakistani Economy
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022)This report focuses on growth in Pakistan, and on key aspects of its proximate determinants: productivity, capital, and talent accumulation. Productivity is crucial in accounting for differences in standards of living across countries and time. In addition, and particularly at the level of development of Pakistan, factor accumulation, investment, and human capital, also matters. Specific and policy relevant questions around these broad themes are this report's center of attention. The underlying framework of analysis and orientation of public policy recommendations is what is known as the 'ABC' of growth. This 'ABC' implies improving allocative efficiency of resources and talent, encouraging business-to-business connections and spillovers, and strengthening firms' capabilities. Public policies oriented to create an enabling environment around these three pillars will be powerful in boosting sustainable growth. However, the efficient allocation of talent and resources, and the business-to business interactions leading to spillovers and the conditions to upgrade capabilities, are limited by economic distortions (or market failures) that inhibit the growth process, sometimes making it as difficult as swimming in sand. -
Publication
Bangladesh Country Economic Memorandum: Change of Fabric
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022)Bangladesh’s development progress over the past decades has been remarkable. Bangladesh has been among the fastest growing economies in the world. Economic development has translated into higher living standards and improved social and health outcomes. The next years will determine Bangladesh’s longer term development trajectory. The milestones ahead reflect the deep structural transformation of Bangladesh’s economy over the past decades, but also serve as a reminder that further transformation will be required for a prosperous future. Sustaining fast growth and addressing these global challenges will require overcoming three critical growth constraint. This report explores these constraints and proposes actionable reforms to sustain development. It is expected to inform the public and help the authorities design policies to achieve the goals set out in the eighth five year plan and Bangladesh vision 2041. The report focuses on three growth constraints: (i) diversifying exports and increasing competitiveness to reach the next development stage through export-led growth; (ii) mobilizing domestic and international savings to channel them toward productive investment; and (iii) upgrading urban areas, unleashing secondary cities, and improving connectivity to sustain structural transformation and increase productivity. In addition, the implications of digital development and climate change are explored as crosscutting themes across the three topics. -
Publication
Mines and Minds: Leveraging Natural Wealth to Invest in People and Institutions
(World Bank, Ulaanbaatar, 2020-09)Mines represent Mongolia’s present, while minds - broadly defined to include people and institutions - are its future. Current policies are excessively focused on preserving the mining-driven prosperity at the risk of future stagnation. Such complacency is ill-timed when climate change concerns and the COVID-19 shock require an acceleration of structural transformation. Mongolia faces deep-rooted, interrelated challenges: macroeconomic policy mistakes have amplified external shocks, an oligopolistic ownership structure and limited competition have led firms to become more inward-looking and less inclined to innovate, and gross underutilization of human capital - evident by an unprecedented exodus of young and educated workers to foreign countries - has eroded the foundation of a diversified economy. -
Publication
Vibrant Vietnam: Forging the Foundation of a High-Income Economy
(World Bank, Hanoi, 2020-05)Vietnam’s development strategy requires an urgent upgrade. Past growth has been impressive. But as a favorable domestic and international environment changes, future growth must be productivity-driven—obtaining more and higher quality output from firms, infrastructure, workers and natural resources. The World Bank’s Vibrant Vietnam report discusses priorities for an upgraded growth model based on extensive consultations, international experience and academic findings. -
Publication
Republic of Yemen: Unlocking the Potential for Economic Growth
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-10)Part one of the report provides an overview of the economy. It has one chapter (chapter one), which provides an overview of the country’s growth and macroeconomic performance and challenges and analyzes and emphasizes the limited dynamism of a rent- and hydrocarbon-cursed economy. Part II describes cross-cutting issues that constrain policy implementation, regardless of the sectors where they occur. In chapter two, the report draws on material outlined in the rest of the report to argue that the policy problems that undermine the country’s development can be linked directly to political distortions introduced by the fragmentation among the population and the elites. While the informal elite networks are able to block reform and aggressively continue to seek rents that might otherwise be recycled into development, the population is unable to exert its rights and hold the elites accountable. Chapter three analyzes the major impediments in the business environment. Through the analysis of the de jure legal and regulatory business environment as well as the enforcement of business regulations, the chapter identifies key legal and institutional changes that can help reduce the opportunities for rent seeking that favor well-connected businesses. Chapter four discusses the opportunities to maximize the benefits of the country’s human capital by enhancing the quality of worker skills, increasing women’s labor force participation, and facilitating the migration of Yemenis to work in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. To achieve this goal, the Republic of Yemen needs to enhance the quality of the education system, especially technical education and vocational training (TEVT), and respond to the existing demand for skilled workers. Chapter five explores the constraints to realizing the potential of agriculture. It argues that a key constraint on the sector is the capture of land and water by multiple elites motivated by short-term rent extraction, which prevents the efficient management of these assets and therefore undermines any possibility of sustainable development. The chapter also discusses other constraints and weaknesses affecting the sector and proposes legal and institutional changes that could help increase transparency in the management of the sector. Chapter six analyzes the prospects for growth in the oil and gas sector and discusses key governance reforms that would help reduce rent seeking in the sector.