Chinese Taipei; Hong Kong, China; Korea and Singapore (the East Asian Newly Industrialised Countries or NICs) have been successful in attaining income convergence with high-income countries while Latin American countries remain caught in the...

There is no unique model of reform for infrastructure that is equally applicable to all countries.Fixed-line privatisation has often failed due to weak economic and institutional endowments.Governments and International Financial Institutions (IFIs)...

ASEAN countries should play a more active role in the international standard-setting process for carbon labelling.Fragmented, bottom-up approaches to carbon labelling may lead to a proliferation of different labelling schemes, acting as a constraint...

A strengthened social contract in Latin American countries relies on the improved quality of public services such as health and education, which would build a constituency for a broader tax base. Latin American middle-income sectors express strong...

Income is very unequally distributed in Latin America - but so too are opportunities for upward mobility. Early childhood development is a powerful mechanism to level the social playing field. More and better secondary education is key. Better...

Informality remains pervasive in Latin American and Caribbean labour markets. Many "middle-sectors workers" (around the middle of the income distribution) are employed informally and contribute irregularly to a public or private pension. Governments...

The ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have created one of the most dynamic developing regions. They have unveiled the Blueprint for the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) to achieve a “single market” by 2015. More...

During the 1990s and the 2000s a variety of crises affected the stability of international capital markets: from the European Monetary System crisis in 1992-93 and the emerging market crises to today’s financial crisis have been present in the arenas...

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI, www.eitransparency.org) aims to improve transparency and accountability by the full publication and verification of company payments and government revenues. The revenues flowing from natural...

Over the past 20 years, public attitudes towards aid in OECD countries have remained steadily positive throughout economic ups and downs. At the same time, polling data shows that voters continue to strongly support aid to developing countries,...

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has been one of the principal beneficiaries of the liberalisation of capital flows over recent decades, and now constitutes the major form of capital inflow for many developing countries, including low-income ones like...

The financial crisis should give a new impetus to governments’ efforts to improve aid effectiveness. Over the last few months, the governments of OECD countries have pledged trillions of dollars in loans, guarantees, capital injections, and other...

Since the credit crisis first erupted, relatively little attention has been given to the consequences of the financial crisis on low-income countries’ indebtedness. Although in recent years developing countries as a group have benefited from...

The contagion of the global credit crisis from the industrialised countries to the emerging markets has taken some time to develop. Then, in October 2008, it spread rapidly, afflicting all emerging markets, without any distinction or regard to their...

Have you ever wondered how many women are in paid employment compared to men? We know they get unequal wages, but just how unequal is their pay? Meanwhile, who are the managers, and what is their gender makeup? Are women and men entering the higher...

Although hard to measure, informality is by all accounts high in Latin America: about half of the region’s working population can be considered informal. In Mexico, the only Latin American country that belongs to the OECD, up to 60 per cent of...

Education is one of the most important drivers of economic growth. The benefits of education go beyond the academic, contributing to economic objectives such as growth and productivity, as well as to social goals such as health and social cohesion....

To meet pressing development challenges, Latin American states need fiscal resources. The good news is that in the last decade, favourable macroeconomic conditions and the design of better tax systems pushed up fiscal revenues in Latin America....

Over the last five years, most Latin American governments have made considerable strides in managing the composition of their public debt, while reducing their foreign-currency exposure. Issuing public debt in local currency is not new for Latin...

Latin America has not neglected fiscal policy. Since the end of the debt crisis of the 1980s, governments in the region have tightened their belts assiduously. Fiscal deficits have fallen from 11 per cent of public revenues in the 1970s and 1980s, to...