Publication:
Are All the Sacred Cows Dead? Implications of the Financial Crisis for Macro- and Financial Policies

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (177.58 KB)
702 downloads
Published
2010-02-01
ISSN
1564-6971
Date
2012-03-30
Editor(s)
Abstract
The recent global financial crisis has shaken the confidence of industrial and developing countries alike in the very blueprint of the financial and macropolicies that underlie the Western capitalist systems. In an effort to contain the crisis from spreading, the authorities in the United States and many European governments have taken unprecedented steps of providing extensive liquidity, giving assurances to bank depositors and creditors that include blanket guarantees, structuring bail-out programs that include taking large ownership stakes in financial institutions, and establishing programs for direct provision of credit to nonfinancial institutions. Emphasizing the importance of incentives and tensions between short term and longer term policy responses to crisis management, the authors draw on a large body of research evidence and country experiences to discuss the implications of the current crisis for financial and macroeconomic policies going forward.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli; Servén, Luis. 2010. Are All the Sacred Cows Dead? Implications of the Financial Crisis for Macro- and Financial Policies. World Bank Research Observer. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4435 License: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO.
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Collections

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

No results found.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Population Health and Economic Growth
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008) Bloom, David E.; Canning, David
    Health is a direct source of human welfare and also an instrument for raising income levels. The authors discuss a number of mechanisms through which health can affect income, focusing on worker productivity, children's education, savings and investment, and demographic structure. As well as the impact of current illness, health may have large effects on prospective life spans and life cycle behavior. Studies suggest there may be a large effect of health and nutrition in uteri, and in the first few years of life, on physical and cognitive development and economic success as an adult. Macroeconomic evidence for an effect on growth is mixed, with evidence of a large effect in some studies. However, there is a possibility that gains from health may be outweighed by the effect of increased survival on population growth, until a fertility transition occurs. The low cost of some health interventions that have large-scale effects on population health makes health investments a promising policy tool for growth in developing countries. In addition, higher priority could be given to tackling widespread 'neglected' diseases that is, diseases with low mortality burdens that are not priorities from a pure health perspective, but that do have substantial effects on productivity.
  • Publication
    Adaptive Social Protection in the Caribbean - Building Human Capital for Resilience
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-10-01) Beazley, Rodolfo; Williams, Asha
    The Caribbean region is highly exposed to different types of shocks, some with devastating effects, ranging from climate change and disasters to external economic stresses and epidemics like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Most Caribbean economies are small and open, and reliant on tourism and foreign investments, combined with high levels of poverty, which makes countries in the region vulnerable to such shocks. Shocks disproportionally affect the poor because they are often not only more exposed to them (e.g. due to their geographical location), but they are also more vulnerable to their effects. The sources of resilience available to the poor are more limited, and therefore they are often less equipped to anticipate, absorb, and recover from shocks. The social protection (SP), health, and education sectors play key roles in helping people to build human capital for resilience. These sectors contribute to strengthening the capacities of households and individuals, and in particular the poor, to anticipate, absorb, and recover from shocks. In this regard, ensuring business continuity for these services during shock events is crucial, alongside developing the capacity to rapidly adapt and deploy adequate support to people affected by shocks. Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) is concerned with how SP programs, services and systems can contribute to addressing covariate shocks through preventive, preparedness, and response actions: that is, adapting and using the capacity of the SP sector, typically developed for addressing idiosyncratic shocks, to enhance the resilience of households – and of the poor in particular
  • Publication
    Policy Responses to the Global Economic Crisis
    (World Bank, 2009-12-01) Lin, Justin Yifu
    While we are observing some “green shoots,” it is too soon to speak of a recovery. We can, however, identify some key forces that are likely to shape any future growth path.
  • Publication
    Innovation Agencies
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-11-13) Kapil, Natasha; Aridi, Anwar
    Many high-income and developing countries have established agencies to promote innovation. This study examines the origin and evolution, organizational structure, policy interventions, delivery challenges, and evaluation mechanisms of 13 innovation agencies in developing countries and one case (SPRING in Singapore) for comparison purposes. This study does not assume that the only approach to improving innovation lies in a dedicated agency – each innovation system is governed differently and the same intervention may have very different results in different contexts. Rather, our goal is to capture how these agencies dealt with the major challenges that confront establishing an innovation agency in a developing country context, where innovation is often hampered by significant market, coordination, and institutional failures, investments in innovation tend to be limited, and the capabilities required for effective innovation are often lacking. The analysis is presented according to seven building blocks that emerged from the analysis of the cases’ patterns and dynamics as pre-requisites for the success of innovation agencies, including a clear but adaptable mission, capable staff, effective governance and management structures, diagnostic-based interventions, robust monitoring and evaluation (M&E), sustainable funding, and strategic partnerships and networks. A diagnosis of NIS gaps and global trends is required to design policy interventions.
  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.