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

COVID-19 has ravaged nearly every country in the world, with the globalization of recent decades intensifying its spread. As of mid-2021, the world had spent $16.5 trillion—18% of global GDP—to fight the disease. And that amount does not even include the most important losses such as deaths, mental health effects, restrictions on human freedom, and other nonmonetary suffering. Nearly 90% of this spending was by developed economies, with the rest by emerging market and developing eco ...

We examine the effects of trade on youth labor force participation and unemployment rates by performing fixed-effects and Arellano-Bond GMM estimations on data from 89 developing and emerging economies from 1990 to 2018. The empirical results suggest that trade openness has U-shaped effects on youth labor force participation rates, with negative impacts at low-to-moderate levels of trade and positive but minor effects at relatively high levels of trade. Except for Latin America, the ...

On January 28, both Argentina’s government and the International Monetary Fund staff made announcements about an understanding on new support program. Meanwhile, in addition to the payment of an amortization due on January 28, another payment is also expected in the first week of February. Both payments relate to the previous package, approved in 2018 and substantially disbursed thereafter. Non-payment could sour relations at a critical moment for a new program to be approved by the ...

Setting the Scene for the Current State of Inclusive Green Finance Climate change is one of, if not the biggest, challenges facing the world. The challenge extends to banking regulators, who, in addition to other responsibilities, are now tasked with ensuring financial inclusion and climate change mitigation. However, central banks realizing how important inclusion and climate change are is only the first step. As part of this process, they need to understand how to define Inclusiv ...

According to the Oslo Manual, innovation can be defined as “the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method or a new organisational method in business practices, workplace organisations or external relations” (OECD, 2005, p. 46). For today’s middle-income countries in Africa, innovation is essential to sustain growth and promote the transition to high-income status. This paper begins by providing a summary of theore ...

The year began with simultaneous signs of a slowdown in global economic growth and a reorientation toward tightening of monetary policies in advanced economies. In its latest Global Economic Prospects released on January 11, the World Bank forecasts that, after a global growth surprisingly at 5.5% last year, it should moderate to somewhere around 4.1% and 3.2%. % in, respectively, 2022 and 2023. In addition to the effects of omicron at the start of the year, less fiscal support and ...

COVID-19 has caused serious damage throughout the entire world. As of mid-2021, the global fiscal cost of COVID-19—excluding the most important consequences, such as human lives, mental health effects, restrictions of human freedom, and other non-pecuniary components, have amounted to at least $16.5 trillion, about 18% of world GDP (Dinh 2021). Financial support has varied across countries depending on income level, political willingness, and the extent of the pandemic in each econo ...

Why Green Finance Taxonomies? The increasing effort to mitigate climate change has caused more and more individuals, governments, and companies to shift away from traditional financial investments and activities, and towards more environmentally-friendly alternatives. However, until recently, there has been a lack of consensus on what green finance and its environmental impact is. Thus, green finance taxonomies are needed to provide classification systems that identify how environm ...