Latin America
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Venezuela: Economic Decline Too Steep to Tabulate
Venezuelan social media is a curious thing. There are few pictures of parents proudly showing off their kids, or of people buzzing with their hazy pictures of a boozy Friday night out littered with endless LMAOs and LOLs. Instead, the
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Otaviano Canuto, IMF: What Happened to World Trade?
World trade suffered another disappointing year in 2015, experiencing a contraction in merchandise trade volumes during the first half and only a low recovery during the second half (Figure 1). While last year’s trade performance can be associated to the
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Ann Low, US Department of State: Good Corporate Governance is Good Business
OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises. Over the past decade, cross-border trade and investment by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) has surged. According to the OECD, whereas in 2005, there were only three SOEs in the Fortune Global 50 list
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Otaviano Canuto, IMF: Whither Emerging Markets Foreign Exchange Reserves
After a exponential rise in foreign exchange reserves accumulation by emerging markets from 2000 onwards, the tide seems to have turned south since mid-2014. Changes in capital flows and commodity prices have been major factors behind the inflection, with the
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From the editor: The Art of the Doomsayer – Crisis? What Crisis?
Just as a broken watch still tells the right time twice a day, the persistent doomsayer will eventually be vindicated. In the financial world, entire reputations are built on predicting recessions, if not depressions: keep it up long enough and
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World Bank Group: Ask Citizens Where Public Money Should Go – The Surprising Results
As citizen engagement gains traction in the development agenda, identifying the extent to which it produces tangible results is essential. Participatory budgeting, a process in which citizens decide upon and monitor budget allocation, offers promising results, including increased local government
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IFC: Capital Markets Key to Development
Ending extreme poverty for good and building shared prosperity across the developing world takes money – a lot of money. Take infrastructure: for the foreseeable future, an estimated $50 billion per year is needed in Africa alone to deliver basic
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BRIC-à-Brac: Requiem for a Wishful Thought
In the end, it may have been nothing more than a flash in the pan. Unable to fulfil the promise of a new world order, the BRICS countries have largely ceased to be of note. With sputtering economies and political
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Brazil & Argentina: Only One Getting Real
Brazil is just one step removed from facing its reality. With nearly all macroeconomic indicators pointing in the less desirable of directions, the country is facing a downgrade of its sovereign credit rating with S&P on July 28 changing its
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Otaviano Canuto, IMF: Trade Opening Could Be a Source of Growth for Brazil
International trade has undergone a radical transformation in the past decades as production processes have fragmented along cross-border value chains. The Brazilian economy has remained on the fringes of this production revolution, maintaining a very high density of local supply
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