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Analysis on macroeconomic determinants of protection in the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, and Poland, while subject to many caveats, suggests that appreciation of the real exchange rate was the main macroeconomic determinant of trade policy reversals in the 1990s. This suggests that balance of payments difficulties may have been used as an excuse for protection. The analysis also suggests that greater exchange rate flexibility and tighter fiscal policies could have been used instead of import surcharges to deal with external imbalances. The surcharges may only have aggravated the external balance by slowing down exports and restructuring of production.

Adequate modeling of the seasonal structure of consumer prices is essential for inflation forecasting. This paper suggests a new econometric approach for jointly determining inflation forecasts and monetary policy stances, particularly where seasonal fluctuations of economic activity and prices are pronounced. In an application of the framework, the paper characterizes and investigates the stability of the seasonal pattern of consumer prices in the Kyrgyz Republic and estimates optimal money growth and implied exchange rate paths along with a jointly determined inflation forecast. The approach uses two broad specifications of an augmented error-correction model-with and without seasonal components. Findings from the paper confirm empirical superiority (in terms of information content and contributions to policymaking) of augmented error-correction models of inflation over single-equation, Box-Jenkins-type general autoregressive seasonal models. Simulations of the estimated errorcorrection models yield optimal monetary policy paths for achieving inflation targets and demonstrate the empirical significance of seasonality and monetary policy in inflation forecasting.

Initially, the intention of this book ' s work, was to take a fresh look at East Asia ' s regional experience during the 1990s, and to expand, and revise as necessary the findings of the World Bank ' s \" East Asian Miracle \" , (published in 1993). However, while work began in 1997 - when the East Asian crisis was only a small, localized cloud over Thailand - the seriousness of the crisis demonstrated the need to bring together a number of different perspectives on key aspects of the East Asian model, and its several country variants. The book assesses the evolving experience with industrial policies, in the forms implemented by individual countries in the region, examines in depth how the Chinese experience meshes with those of other economies in the region - a dimension absent in the \" East Asian Miracle \" - and, the rich evidence from the 1990s, casts new light on the relative contribution of export-led policies, and of import liberalization to growth, while helping to clarify key issues that influence the choices of exchange rate policies. Taking into account the realization that understanding the East Asian development requires admittance of the political economy of change, of governance, and of the roles of key institutions, the contributors to this book, considered each of these carefully, and offer an economic kaleidoscope on East Asia that is deep, and analytically rigorous.

Far reaching macro-economic and structural reforms combined with increases in government spending have been the primary drivers of Tanzania's growth acceleration. As growth in government spending slows, the locomotive for growth will need to shift to increased demand for exports and domestically produced goods, requiring Tanzania to strengthen substantially its international competitiveness, accelerate structural change, and safeguard the environment while maintaining macroeconomic stability. For Tanzania's poor to be able to participate and benefit from important growth, a greater focus on rural development, improved governance of the management of Tanzania's natural resources, and better targeting of social services to the poor is suggested. Successful design and implementation of a shared growth strategy will also require a strengthening of policy management and coordination in Tanzania to ensure that scarce human and financial resources are effectively deployed.

This volume provides a set of six case studies from West Africa. These assess the benefits of growth (or the costs of a lack of growth) in terms of poverty reduction in those countries. The first part of this book describes the experience of two countries (Ghana and Senegal) that achieved high levels of growth in the 1990s, and that also experienced important reductions in poverty, even though growth was not strictly pro-poor. The second part describes the experience of two other countries (Burkina Faso and Cape Verde) that also achieved high levels of growth in the 1990s, but where there was an initial perception that growth did not lead to much poverty reduction. The more detailed analysis of poverty presented here suggests however that these two countries did witness a sharp reduction in their population share in poverty, as would have been expected given their growth record. Finally, in the third part, the authors argue that a lack of growth in the 1990s in Guinea-Bissau and Nigeria has been a key reason for their persistently high levels of poverty. Overall, the case studies in this Working Paper make a strong case for the positive impact of growth on poverty reduction in West Africa. However, they also point to the need to pay close attention to changes in inequality, because such changes have limited the gains from growth for the poor in several of the countries considered here.

DEVELOPMENT CANNOT BE IMPOSED FROM THE OUTSIDE. IT HAS TO HAPPEN FROM WITHIN. This groundbreaking book from South Asia shows how homegrown experiments can be scaled up to transform the lives of millions of poor women and men in the developing world. Here are stories of development ideas that work?and of the visionary individuals who were determined to see them succeed. These achievements have taken place against all odds, in countries struggling with widespread corruption, weak governance, minimal infrastructure, deep-rooted social divisions, and poorly functioning judicial systems. South Asian economies are booming, yet millions are still excluded from participation in this growth. This book offers valuable lessons in how to make markets and services work to benefit poor people directly, enhancing their dignity and freedom of choice. Written by program insiders, these case studies show how governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector can initiate change, learning, expanding and adapting as they go. Ending Poverty in South Asia is an essential tool for policy makers, social scientists, and development practitioners?indeed for all who are interested in tackling poverty and growth issues from the bottom up.

This paper evaluates empirically the feedback and stance of monetary policy in the United Kingdom under inflation targeting, implemented since October 1992. Its principal contribution is in comparing two subsamples, before the Bank of England was granted operational independence in May 1997 and after that. We find that the operational independence subperiod has differed from the preindependence one in terms of a weaker response to inflation but stronger sensitivity to the output gap and a less restrictive stance of monetary policy. Such behavior appears justified given the Bank's mandate and the evolution of the business cycle.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines have been an important topic in public discourse. The discussions around vaccines are polarized, as some see them as an important measure to end the pandemic, and others are hesitant or find them harmful. A substantial portion of these discussions occurs openly on social media platforms. This allows us to closely monitor the opinions of different groups and their changes over time. This study investigated posts related to COVID-19 vaccines on Twitter (Twitter Inc) and focused on those that had a negative stance toward vaccines. It examined the evolution of the percentage of negative tweets over time. It also examined the different topics discussed in these tweets to understand the concerns and discussion points of those holding a negative stance toward the vaccines. A data set of 16,713,238 English tweets related to COVID-19 vaccines was collected, covering the period from March 1, 2020, to July 31, 2021. We used the scikit-learn Python library to apply a support vector machine classifier to identify the tweets with a negative stance toward COVID-19 vaccines. A total of 5163 tweets were used to train the classifier, of which a subset of 2484 tweets was manually annotated by us and made publicly available along with this paper. We used the BERTopic model to extract the topics discussed within the negative tweets and investigate them, including how they changed over time. We showed that the negativity with respect to COVID-19 vaccines has decreased over time along with the vaccine rollouts. We identified 37 topics of discussion and presented their respective importance over time. We showed that popular topics not only consisted of conspiratorial discussions, such as 5G towers and microchips, but also contained legitimate concerns around vaccination safety and side effects as well as concerns about policies. The most prevalent topic among vaccine-hesitant tweets was related to the use of messenger RNA and fears about its speculated negative effects on our DNA. Hesitancy toward vaccines existed before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, given the dimension of and circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, some new areas of hesitancy and negativity toward COVID-19 vaccines have arisen, for example, whether there has been enough time for them to be properly tested. There is also an unprecedented number of conspiracy theories associated with them. Our study shows that even unpopular opinions or conspiracy theories can become widespread when paired with a widely popular discussion topic such as COVID-19 vaccines. Understanding the concerns, the discussed topics, and how they change over time is essential for policy makers and public health authorities to provide better in-time information and policies to facilitate the vaccination of the population in future similar crises.