Publication: Albania - Sustaining Growth Beyond the Transition : A World Bank Country Economic Memorandum
Loading...
Published
2004-12-27
ISSN
Date
2013-07-08
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
While Albania 's performance has been impressive, there are concerns about the sustainability of high rates of economic growth in the future. The evidence from the growth accounting exercise indicates that total factor productivity growth from post-transition reallocation is gradually coming to an end. At the same time, the contribution of capital accumulation has only picked up modestly. This suggests that in order to sustain high GDP growth going forward, Albania must seek to raise its investment and, secondary school enrollment rates, increase the degree of trade integration, and improve institutional quality (governance). Worryingly, total factor productivity growth has slowed significantly in recent years while the contribution of factor accumulation was negligible. Neither remittances nor earnings from illegal activities constitute a solid basis for long-term economic development. There are signs, already, of a decelerating trend in the level of remittances. Furthermore, there are concerns about the financing of the country's investment needs over the medium term. The likelihood that Albania's access to concessional financing sources will decline, as well as expectations for dwindling external support and inflows from abroad, presents major risk factors that must be mitigated with the help of the donor community.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2004. Albania - Sustaining Growth Beyond the Transition : A World Bank Country Economic Memorandum. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/14383 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Philippines - Discussion Notes : Challenges and Options for 2010 and Beyond(World Bank, 2011-06-09)With the global economy on the way to recovery from the financial crisis, the Asian economies appear poised to bounce back strongly. For most people in the Philippines, however, a return to the status quo ante will offer little consolation. That is because when economic growth accelerated during 2002-08, poverty did not decline as hoped. With a third of the population currently below the poverty line, and high and rising inequality in incomes, the country's main development challenge is to achieve growth that is much more widely shared to make growth work for the poor. Making growth work for the poor in the Philippines is a significant development challenge, but one that is worth pursuing vigorously. The new administration not only has the mandate but the historic opportunity to deliver on this goal as well as other election platforms on which it was voted to power. These include 'the organized and widely-shared rapid expansion of the economy through a government dedicated to honing and mobilizing the people's skills and energies as well as the responsible harnessing of natural resources; moving to well-considered programs that build capacity and create opportunity among the poor and the marginalized in the country; policies that create conditions conducive to the growth and competitiveness of private businesses, big, medium and small; and making education the central strategy for investing in people, reducing poverty and building national competitiveness.' In addition, the new administration is committed to fight corruption. These goals are fully echoed in the strategy and policy actions identified above and elaborated in the accompanying discussion notes.Publication Ethiopia - Accelerating Equitable Growth : Country Economic Memorandum, Part 2. Thematic Chapters(Washington, DC, 2007-06)This report presents an update on the economic challenges facing Ethiopia with a focus on the shared goal of accelerating equitable growth. The starting point is the Government's own Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP), which is in the process of finalization, and is designed to cover the period 2005-2010. This report proposes that the growth strategy should more explicitly adopt a "two-legged" approach that would both (a) consolidate and deepen an essentially balanced, broad-based and inclusive growth strategy and (b) adopt a more selective approach to speed up growth, allowing for identification and support for dynamic new activities, based on private and public sector discoveries, innovations, and partnerships. This report suggests ways forward to complement and strengthen the PASDEP. It brings together recent analysis and thinking from a range of sources, to put forth a storyline and key elements of the strategy in Part I. The second part provides a series of chapters on key themes - viz. recent and longer term economic developments, rural development, the private sector, the infrastructure challenge, and the institutions and governance. The report seeks to provide adequate coverage of the major challenges facing Ethiopia in its efforts to accelerate equitable growth, drawing on work across a range of themes including the Institutional and Governance Review.Publication Belarus Country Economic Memorandum : Eeconomic Transformation for Growth(Washington, DC, 2012-04-05)The last decade in Belarus was marked by an average economic growth rate of close to 8 percent annually and an impressive eight-fold reduction in poverty. Economic growth was initially driven by external factors, but after 2005 expansionary domestic demand became the prevalent contributor to growth. Growth was backed by large state support to the economy, sizeable public investments, and huge expansion of credit, particularly under government directed lending programs. Simultaneously, the external balance shifted from a surplus of 1.4 percent of growth development product (GDP) in 2005 to a deficit of 15.0 percent of GDP in 2010. Throughout the period 2001-10, the economic model relied on underpriced energy resources from Russia, with an annual average size of the imputed subsidy of over 13 percent of GDP. However, the existing growth model has reached its limits and cannot ensure growth sustainability without structural reforms. Going forward, the growth model will have to rely on significant productivity gains driven by structural reforms in an environment of macroeconomic stability. Macroeconomic adjustment which effectively combats the sources of external imbalances in Belarus is a critical and necessary, but insufficient condition for achieving sustainable economic growth in the medium term. The Belarusian economy is facing formidable challenges beyond the macroeconomic issue of adequately financing its external imbalances: (1) how to reallocate labor and capital to high productivity segments of the economy; (2) how to restructure the state-owned enterprise sector; and (3) how to support the underdeveloped private sector and the services sector. By successfully overcoming these challenges, Belarus will revive its competitive segments of the economy and discover untapped opportunities for growth. It will also diminish its economic dependence on underpriced energy from Russia and move up the value chain in global integration. With valuable geographical location and an educated and disciplined labor force, Belarus can restructure its economy, diversify its exports, and increase the prosperity of its people.Publication Achieving the MDGs in Yemen : An Assessment(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-03)Once the current political crisis in Yemen has been resolved, it will be ever more urgent to speed up progress, including Millennium Development Goal (MDG) achievements. Drawing on simulations with the Maquette for MDG Simulations (MAMS), a model for strategy analysis, and a linked microsimulation model, this paper addresses Yemen's MDG challenges. A first simulation set considers scaled-up government actions with the aim of fully achieving the 2015 international MDG targets with required additional financing from foreign or domestic sources. The main finding is sobering but not surprising: given the required expansion of MDG -- related services, on-time achievement of key MDG targets does not appear to have been a realistic objective even if the government, hypothetically, would have expanded services with grant aid financing starting from 2005; macroeconomic stability, government efficiency, and the production of tradables would all have suffered due to the size of spending and aid increases as well as the resulting real exchange rate appreciation. The results suggest that countries, instead of relying on international targets, should set MDG targets grounded in their own reality. In light of these results, the authors designed a second simulation set that is focused on the remaining period up to 2015, and on what may be feasible once the current conflict has been settled. The simulations introduce moderate increases in foreign aid or government allocative efficiency. The government uses the resulting fiscal space for spending and service expansion in infrastructure and human development without losses in productive efficiency. The results suggest that, under these conditions, substantial improvements could still be achieved.Publication Pakistan : Finding the Path to Job-Enhancing Growth(Islamabad: World Bank, 2013-08)Pakistan's rebound from the global financial crisis has been slow and fragile, and unless the economy changes course swiftly, it could face its second balance of payments crisis in five years. Its recovery from the 2008-09 global financial crisis has been the weakest in South Asia, with a double dip pattern. This report identifies conditions for a sustainable job-enhancing growth agenda for Pakistan. Policy must target both goals as they are closely intertwined. Higher growth rates can be achieved through productivity improvements (technology, innovation, better economic governance), but also from higher output extracted from factors-physical capital, labor, human capital, and land. This report considers whether Pakistan should pursue historical growth of 4.3 percent a year, supported by piecemeal structural reforms leading to partial and unsatisfactory outcomes-or rapid growth of 7 percent, requiring comprehensive big-bang reforms. The report is organized around three major themes: (i) the stylized facts, what are the pluses and minuses of Pakistan's patterns of growth and job creation? (ii) the diagnostics, what is holding back Pakistan's growth? And (iii) the transformational agenda, what are the core ingredients of job-enhancing growth? And how can analysis of the political economy identify policy tradeoffs?
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Europe and Central Asia Economic Update, Spring 2025: Accelerating Growth through Entrepreneurship, Technology Adoption, and Innovation(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-23)Business dynamism and economic growth in Europe and Central Asia have weakened since the late 2000s, with productivity growth driven largely by resource reallocation between firms and sectors rather than innovation. To move up the value chain, countries need to facilitate technology adoption, stronger domestic competition, and firm-level innovation to build a more dynamic private sector. Governments should move beyond broad support for small- and medium-sized enterprises and focus on enabling the most productive firms to expand and compete globally. Strengthening competition policies, reducing the presence of state-owned enterprises, and ensuring fair market access are crucial. Limited availability of long-term financing and risk capital hinders firm growth and innovation. Economic disruptions are a shock in the short term, but they provide an opportunity for implementing enterprise and structural reforms, all of which are essential for creating better-paying jobs and helping countries in the region to achieve high-income status.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Morocco Economic Update, Winter 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-03)Despite the drought causing a modest deceleration of overall GDP growth to 3.2 percent, the Moroccan economy has exhibited some encouraging trends in 2024. Non-agricultural growth has accelerated to an estimated 3.8 percent, driven by a revitalized industrial sector and a rebound in gross capital formation. Inflation has dropped below 1 percent, allowing Bank al-Maghrib to begin easing its monetary policy. While rural labor markets remain depressed, the economy has added close to 162,000 jobs in urban areas. Morocco’s external position remains strong overall, with a moderate current account deficit largely financed by growing foreign direct investment inflows, underpinned by solid investor confidence indicators. Despite significant spending pressures, the debt-to-GDP ratio is slowly declining.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)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.