From Singapore to Shenzhen, Special Economic Zones—SEZs for short—have helped underpin the rapid export-oriented growth of East Asia. In an effort to replicate these sleepy-fishing-village-turn-thriving-metropolis success stories, many countries…
VoxEU Sovereign ratings are important for countries to access international capital, but even today 58 developing countries are not rated by Standard and Poor’s, Moody’s, or Fitch. This column…
The Asian style of regional integration may be seen as a “quasi-common economy” that eschews a formal linkup in political or monetary terms, but manages to generate similar results…
Debt and credit ratings keep making headlines. But for a moment, forget about their impact in the U.S. and Europe, where an abundant set of economic data exists both…
Gender inequality and discrimination can affect many areas of life, from a women’s access to basic health services to her prospects for education and future earnings. Accordingly, in order…
The causes and effects of climate change are better known today than ever before. Whether it is world leaders meeting to discuss climate policy in Cancun or Copenhagen, Al…
The “middle-income trap” has snared many developing countries: they succeeded in evolving from low per capita income levels, but then appeared to stall, losing momentum along the route toward the higher income levels of advanced economies. Does moving up the income ladder get harder the higher one climbs?
High-level policy dialogue with the international financial and trade institutions on current developments in the world economy, High-level Segment 2011 – ECOSOC 5 Jul 2011 - 15th meeting of the 2011 High-level…
The global economic crisis uncovered many of the vulnerabilities of an increasingly integrated world. So much so, that even though we are now well on the path to recovery,…
The world of presumed stable monetary and financial conditions was severely shaken by the recent global financial crisis. And with that, the separation in some quarters of financial supervision…
The protests that swept through the Middle East and North Africa over the past six months have shown us what people will do to have their voices heard. Starting…
Remittances, or the money migrant workers send home to their countries of origin, are finally recovering to pre-crisis levels. In 2010, remittance flows to developing countries reached $325 billion,…
It’s no secret that current account imbalances exist around the world. In many cases, these imbalances may be benign and merely reflect market-driven differences in savings and investment or…
Over the past three decades, global trade grew almost twice as fast as global gross domestic product (GDP). The massive process of commercial integration was made possible by technological…
In the aftermath of the global economic crisis, financial market regulators have proposed a myriad of reforms to better govern the banking sector and to enhance its resilience to…