Session 4: Structural Change in The Global Economy and Its Meaning for Emerging Markets

Last week the World Bank released a Staff Note (2017) analyzing the pension reform proposal sent last December by Brazil’s Federal Government to Congress. It concludes that (p.16, our emphasis): “… the proposed pension reform in Brazil is necessary, urgent if Brazil is to meet its spending rule, and socially balanced in that the proposal mostly eliminates subsidies received under the current rules by formal sector workers and civil servants who belong to the top 60 percent of house ...

Development finance is an issue that typically concerns developing countries where numerous, grave socioeconomic problems persist, including – and not among the least – the need for stable development finance in higher quantity and of higher quality. However, development finance could also be used today as a growth-enhancing concept applicable to advanced economies, to boost their growth and help their social inclusion. It could contribute to rebalancing macroeconomic policies and m ...

Turkey has been approaching a crossroads for some time now. Soon enough it will have to choose a direction. On April 16, 2017 Turks will vote in a referendum on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s proposed constitutional amendment that would shift the country’s power center from a parliamentary system to a presidential one.  If successful, not only would this further consolidate power in the executive’s hands—in this case Erdogan himself—but it would also pave the way for him to rema ...

Dans un contexte mondial de plus en plus préoccupé par les aléas climatiques, comprendre l’impact de la croissance économique sur l’environnement devient crucial, notamment pour les pays en voie de développement. Ce papier aborde cette problématique sous le prisme des émissions de dioxyde de carbone (CO2) et examine comment la croissance économique se répercute sur l’environnement. L’objectif de cette étude est de tester la validité de la courbe environnementale de Kuznets (CEK) pou ...

Since the fall of the Derg regime in 1991, cordial relations have developed between China and Ethiopia, forming a positive political backdrop in front of which the two countries’ interests have increasingly converged. On the one hand, Ethiopia seeks to replicate the experience of East Asian countries such as Taiwan, Malaysia, or China and to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) in order to accelerate the development of its manufacturing capacities (in particular through an ambit ...

Colombia is a country of incredible contrast: known to be one of the places on earth where people feel happiest, it is also one of the most unequal and for many decades, a country immersed in a protracted conflict. Despite the latter - and here is the starkest contrast - Colombia has recently succeeded in reducing poverty and building the foundations for sustainable growth and prosperity. The Santos administration has delivered on two of its main promises: sign a peace agreement wi ...

Dans le sillage des débats actuels sur la contribution de la femme à la création de richesses, le présent ouvrage s’essaye d’y contribuer moyennant des approches méthodologiques innovantes couvrant plusieurs champs d’analyse conciliant l’égalité de genre, les politiques publiques et la croissance économique au Maroc. Il offre, ainsi, un diagnostic exhaustif de l’évolution des inégalités de genre en termes, notamment, d'accès à l'emploi, à l'éducation, à la santé, à l'infrastructure, ...

During his run for President of the United States, Mr. Trump called the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), “the worst trade deal ever approved by this country”. His target is Mexico, which runs a $ 50 billion surplus of trade in goods and services with the United States. Trade with Canada, the third NAFTA party, is essentially balanced. However, NAFTA’s provisions cannot be changed without affecting Canada and without Canada’s consent, and the Foreign Ministers of Canada a ...

Central banks of large advanced and many emerging market economies have recently gone through a period of extraordinary expansion of balance sheets and are all now possibly facing a transition to less abnormal times. However, the fact that one group is comprised by global reserve issuers and the other by bystanders receiving impacts of the former’s policies carries substantively different implications. Furthermore, using Brazil and the U.S. as examples, we also illustrate how the re ...

Despite the sustained growth in the bilateral trade observed at the beginning of the Century, Moroccan – Brazilian economic relations are still going through what could be called the ‘shallow’ phase of relations between two middle-income countries. Trade is concentrated in a few products – those where both countries enjoy long lasting and natural comparative advantages – and face strong difficulties to diversify in terms of products and to upgrade towards more complex models of lin ...