Person:
Nallari, Raj
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Development Policy
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Growth and Competitiveness Practice, World Bank Institute
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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 .
Publication Search Results
1 - 7 of 7
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Publication
Clusters of Competitiveness
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013)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. -
Publication
Institutional Environment and Public Officials' Performance in Guyana
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2001-05)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. -
Publication
Geography of Growth : Spatial Economics and Competitiveness
(World Bank, 2012-04-20)This volume is organized as follows. Chapter one address two questions: how has spatial concentration evolved with growth and development, and what are the efficiency implications of too much or too little spatial concentration? This chapter summarizes the various models that analyze growth by geographic concentration and sets the foundation for concepts discussed in later chapters. Chapter two focuses on urbanization in geographies. Chapter three correlates urban presence with economic density in developed and developing countries. It initially focuses on how urban transition and growth are blurring the rural-urban divide and the unprecedented volume of people who are moving to urban areas. Chapter four discusses how different industries inhabit and impact various urban sectors. Chapter five contextualizes urban growth in the current technological landscape as innovation, particularly in information technology, has become critical to increasing productivity and consequently growth. Chapter six further analyzes urbanization in the current global context, specifically, the impact of globalization and industry clusters on urbanization. Chapter seven addresses a current fundamental global trend: why has urbanization been growing rapidly since the 1950s? Some theories suggest that it is industry that spurs urbanization and consequently growth in infrastructure; however this is not the case. Instead, the chapter concludes by looking at data across regions and cities, the municipalities are pivotal in influencing infrastructure development and growth in urban centers. Finally, chapter eight deciphers why some cities are more successful than others. Why do Karachi and Sao Paulo have the human capital that qualifies them as urban centers but not as thriving cities? By citing examples of successful cities, this chapter provides policy recommendations on how to make a city competitive in today's economy. -
Publication
Micro Efficiency and Macro Growth
( 2010-04-01)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). -
Publication
Rethinking Multipliers in a Globalized World
( 2010-04-01)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. -
Publication
Understanding Growth and Poverty : Theory, Policy, and Empirics
(World Bank, 2011)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. -
Publication
Gender and Macroeconomic Policy
(World Bank, 2011-01-05)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.