Brazil and South Korea: Two Tales Of a Middle-Income Trap

Emerging market economies (EM) as a special class of financial assets have recently been subject to two competing tales. On the one hand, there is evidence of continued financial deepening and further integration within the global financial system, while the offer of higher yields remains hard to find elsewhere. On the other hand, there are frequent bouts of fear of systemic unwinding of positions triggered by investors “exiting” EM that exhibit signs of weak or unclear macroeconomi ...

This policy brief argues that Mexico’s future agenda of negotiations should include three main priorities. Firstly, with the help of its NAFTA partners, Mexico should position itself as the export platform of North America to the world. Its structural changes, web of agreements, and strategic location pave the way for this. Secondly, it should insist on being invited to the negotiating table of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). If full participation is not p ...

OCP Policy Center and its partners, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Center for Technology and Economic Development (CTED) at the New York University are pleased to announce the publication of a Special Issue on "Food Price Volatility and its Consequences" in Oxford Economic Papers. The papers selected in this special issue were first presented in February 2014 at an international conference organized in Rabat in collaboration with the IMF's Research Department and  t ...

Housing is part of the United Nations 11th Sustainable Development Goal, which is to “make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. One of the most important targets of such a goal is to “ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing1 and basic services and upgrade slums”. Since 2007, the world has faced rising inequality, insecurity and climate change impact. According to UN Habitat, 54% of the world´s population currently live in cities. By 2050, this n ...

The Chinese economy is rebalancing while softening its growth pace. China’s spillovers on the global economy have operated through trade, commodity prices, and financial channels. The global reach of the effects from China’s transition have recently been illustrated in risk scenarios simulated for Latin American and the Caribbean economies.  The Chinese economy is rebalancing while softening its growth pace… The weight of the Chinese economy in the global economy rose on its way t ...

Latin American economies are facing two historically defining challenges. First, how to cope with the end of the commodities “super-cycle” and the prospect of a long period of low prices for basic natural resources. After all, raw materials production and semi-industrialized goods encompass most of their comparative advantages. Second, and even more exacting, how to adjust to the present disruptive transition from an old to a new global economic and social model. The 20th century in ...

The referendum in favor of the exit of Britain from the European Union (“Brexit”) marks a sad day for Britain and for Europe. It represents a victory of nationalism over the liberal economic order, in the country that inspired the ideas that lie at its foundations. The referendum probably signals the end of an experiment widely supported by the young, the elites and most economists, but which has failed in the eyes of the majority of British people. For Britain, the economic risks a ...

The Atlantic basin holds a strategic place in the global economy given the systemic importance that the northern part of the region represents. However, this area remains very heterogeneous with significant differences between the economies within it. The analysis conducted in this policy brief also shows the lack of synchronization of the economic cycle among the countries in the region, and especially the low level of trade and financial integration of the African part of the basi ...