Nallari, Raj

Person:
Nallari, Raj

Growth and Competitiveness Practice, World Bank Institute

Fields of Specialization

Development Policy

External Links

Growth and Crisis Blog

Departments

Growth and Competitiveness Practice, World Bank Institute

Last updated February 1, 2023

Biography

Raj Nallari is currently Practice Manager of the Growth and Competitiveness Practice within the World Bank Institute. Prior to this assignment, he was the Program Leader for the Poverty and Growth Program. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Texas at Austin. He joined the World Bank in July 1992 and since then has worked on economic issues of several African, Caribbean and South Asian countries. He was on a two-year secondment to the IMF Policy Development and Review Department. He is the co-author of eleven books on Macroeconomic Stabilization and Growth Issues and has published papers in reputed economic journals. Mr. Nallari can be reached at Rnallari@worldbank.org .

Full item page

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 11

Understanding Growth and Poverty : Theory, Policy, and Empirics

(World Bank, 2011) Nallari, Raj ; Griffith, Breda

This volume is an introduction to the theories and policies that affect economic growth and poverty. It is a compilation of lecture notes used in face-to-face and e-learning courses presented by the World Bank Institute's (WBI) Poverty Program during 2004-08. The volume is divided into three parts. Part one discusses basic concepts and measurement issues pertaining to poverty, national income, and economic growth. Part two deals with the macroeconomic policies that are critical for economic growth in the short term. It covers government enforced fiscal and exchange-rate policies and the roles of financial institutions, development assistance (or aid), debt relief, and trade policies. Part three covers the structural and sectoral policies that affect longer-term economic growth and poverty reduction. To underscore the impact of good governance and effective service delivery in growth and poverty reduction, separate chapters are devoted to institutional and technological development, education, health, labor, and land. The volume ends with a chapter that summarizes knowledge of growth theory, reviews the process of growth in 13 successful countries, and draws out implications for other developing countries. The authors hope that this chapter may be of help to policy makers in identifying the constraints to economic growth and development that may be unique to each country.
A Primer on Policies for Jobs

(World Bank, 2012) Nallari, Raj ; Griffith, Breda ; Wang, Yidan ; Andriamananjara, Soamiely ; Chen, Derek H. C. ; Bhattacharya, Rwitwika

A primer on policies for jobs is based on materials and input provided during the labor market courses conducted during the past 10 years. Its objective is to provide government policy makers, researchers, and labor market practitioners and other specialists with a practical guide on how to strengthen labor market institutions, especially in light of the global financial crisis. This primer emphasizes six pillars of labor market institutions: global trends, job creation, labor market policies, education, entrepreneurship, and globalization. Chapter one addresses current labor market trends and job creation, particularly in tough conditions. Chapter two examines channels of job creation and ways to strengthen labor market institutions to ensure sustainable job growth, considering factors such as investment climate, job policy, industrial policy, social protection, and other labor market issues. Chapter three focuses on labor market policies in developing countries. Chapter four highlights the impact of education and skills on labor market outcome. Chapter five discusses entrepreneurship along three key dimensions: development and growth, job creation, and female entrepreneurship. Finally, chapter six addresses the relationship between jobs and globalization.
Institutional Environment and Public Officials' Performance in Guyana

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2001-05) Gokcekus, Omer ; Manning, Nick ; Mukherjee, Ranjana ; Nallari, Raj

The report presents the findings of a survey of public officials in Guyana, whose views were sought in a wide range of civil service issues - from personnel management, to rewards, and disciplinary actions, and, from budget environment to corruption. Answers were used to test some prior assertions about the public sector in the country, and, it is the respondents' belief that public sector jobs are attractive, though public employees are not fully prepared for their jobs through education, and training, nor is recruitment always based on merit. However, officials find policies consistent, but implement policies even if in disagreement with policy directions. Furthermore, decision-making is characterized by poor communication, and low employee participation. Nonetheless, officials surveyed showed insight about which reforms might enhance organizational performance, and, based on data analysis, quantification of how public officials assess the organizations' institutional environment, and performance was possible. Survey data demonstrated how widely varied the institutional environments of such organizations are, and, provided evidence that performance does depend upon institutional environment. The report prioritizes interventions according to the potential payoffs in different performance areas, suggesting performance monitoring is likely to be associated with significant positive change in performance.
Frontiers in Development Policy : A Primer on Emerging Issues

(World Bank, 2011-09-15) Nallari, Raj ; Yusuf, Shahid ; Griffith, Breda ; Bhattacharya, Rwitwika

The book has been divided into five parts. Part one focuses on clarifying the basic concepts (that is, what are the appropriate goals of economic policy?), the challenges of low- and middle-income developing countries, and suggested frameworks for analysis. Part two moves from the macroeconomic to the microeconomic; it focuses on the private sector as the engine for growth and is balanced with 'softer' issues of the need for trust, accountability, and corporate social responsibility. Part three examines the growing consensus on the need to balance the public and private sectors' roles in the structural transformation of an economy. The discussion centers on newer thinking on industrial policy and public private partnerships in infrastructure. Part four focuses on human development policies in emerging topics, such as investment in early childhood development, health and nutrition, and quality of education. The discussion recognizes the roles of the state and the private sector. Finally, part five is dedicated to issues of global shocks and risks (including climate change and financial crisis), as well as systems and institutions that need to be in place to manage such risks, and the new thinking on social protection and insurance to mitigate adverse shocks.
Growing Out of Crisis

(World Bank, 2009-12-01) Nallari, Raj

Is the financial crisis over and could it happen again? We asked experts with diverse perspectives to address the key questions that concern the developing countries.
Rethinking Multipliers in a Globalized World

( 2010-04-01) Nallari, Raj ; Mba, Leopold Engozogo

This paper uses the central tool of an investment-savings and monetary-policy model with an augmented Philips curve and presents a few extensions of that model to analyze the multiplier effects of macroeconomic policies in the United States. In doing so, the authors incorporate realistic assumptions in the model related to the recent financial characteristics of the global economy. The monetary policy reaction function embeds a new augmented Taylor-rule incorporating housing and stock prices and the credit lending rate. And the household consumption and firm investment decisions incorporate housing and stock assets and the credit market frictions. The equilibrium income is derived and compared with the actual nominal gross domestic product of the United States for the period 1990 to 2009. More importantly, fiscal and trade multipliers are derived and discussed. The main finding is that government spending, tax cut, and trade multipliers are relatively smaller in size when more realistic features are incorporated in the model. The model simulation shows that the model can track actual gross domestic product reasonably well. The model should be further improved before it could be used for policy exercises.
Of Floods and Droughts : The Economic and Financial Crisis of 2008

( 2010-03-01) Islam, Roumeen ; Nallari, Raj

This paper provides an overview of the period prior to the recent global crisis, and the policies that were adopted around the world in response to the crisis. It highlights a number of key issues regarding economic and financial policies that governments have faced both globally and nationally. These are related to the management of boom and bust episodes that deserve more attention in policy circles in the future.
Clusters of Competitiveness

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013) Nallari, Raj ; Griffith, Breda

Competitiveness is a broad subject with applications at the level of the firm, industry, region, nation, and global economy. Each one of these aspects has a rich literature drawn on by academics and policy makers over a long period. This book seeks to present a broad overview of the main ideas underlying competitiveness and its applications, highlighting, and discussing in greater depth the topics that are of relevance currently. The book draws out the experiences of and lessons for developing economies and examines in detail the role for policy. This paper is structured as follows: chapter one addresses competition and competition policy; chapter two examines competitiveness by analyzing its many different indicators; chapter three looks further at indexes of national competitiveness that describe international competitive performance; chapter four addresses innovation, an increasingly important aspect of competitiveness; and chapter five discusses competitiveness and clusters.
Gender and Macroeconomic Policy

(World Bank, 2011-01-05) Nallari, Raj ; Griffith, Breda

This report aims to show how macroeconomic policies create differential opportunities for women and men. This volume comprises nine chapters covering four broad themes: gender as a category of analysis in macroeconomics; the implications of gender for macroeconomic aggregates, in particular consumption and economic growth; the role of gender in the labor market, globalization, and access to credit; and gender budgeting. Chapters one and two address the first theme. Chapter one focuses on the macroeconomic cost to growth and development that arises from rigid gender roles and associated gender asymmetries. Chapter two documents the progress made in gender mainstreaming by highlighting developments in data collection and monitoring that have moved beyond simply disaggregating data by male and female. Chapters three and four cover the second theme. Chapter three considers the role of gender relations in the macroeconomic aggregates of consumption, savings, investment, and government expenditure and the implications for macroeconomic policy in these areas. Chapter four examines gender relations and economic growth. Chapters five through seven focus on the third theme. Chapter five examines the labor market. Chapter six examines how globalization affects gender relations, particularly employment. Chapter seven concentrates on women's access to finance and documents gender asymmetries in this market. Chapter eight, on the fourth theme, highlights the impact fiscal policies have on gender relations. It documents how policy can be made more gender specific and reports on the progress made by countries that have adopted gender-responsive government budgeting. Chapter nine summarizes what is known about gender and macroeconomic policy, noting areas in which the literature is well developed as well as areas that require further research and study.
Micro Efficiency and Macro Growth

( 2010-04-01) Nallari, Raj ; Bayraktar, Nihal

This paper is about micro foundations of productivity and growth. There are several studies on productivity for advanced economies but relatively few for developing countries. Using data from the investment climate surveys of the World Bank, estimation results from 45 developing countries, complemented by extended analysis at firm and industry levels for Brazil and India for the period 2002-05, indicate the following: (i) confirmation of the importance of total factor productivity at firm, industry and national levels, but total factor productivity progressively tapers off at each level of aggregation implying that there is a less than one-to-one relationship between micro-efficiency, sector growth, and macro growth; (ii) capital accumulation is more important at the macro level than the micro level; (iii) productivity at the micro level is driven by research and development, the capacity utilization rate, and adoption of foreign technology (all of which involve management decisions), and is negatively related to corruption and instability, tax, and financial regulations; and (iii) confirmation of the lower contribution of total factor productivity to output growth in developing countries than in developed economies. Management decisions are involved in a lot of day-to-day operations at the firm level and therefore management is an unmeasured input. In developing countries, at the firm level, there is a need to understand the contribution of quality of inputs (management quality, education and labor quality, training, experience of workers, use of computers at work) and also the role of external agglomeration (for example, location in a booming city, competitive pressures from new firms, trade competition, and regulations).