Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy

We are sleep walking into a situation where over the next decade and a half concessional development assistance will disengage from the bulk of the world's poor. This is happening because countries that are graduating into Middle Income status still have large numbers of poor people. This new situation, where three quarters of the world's poor live in Middle Income Countries, raises fundamental questions about the salience of national level achievements in determining global responsibilities towards the poor in each nation. They also raise basic questions for the operational rules of access to concessional development assistance such as that provided by the International Development Association (IDA). This paper set out the issues, and presents a proposal for a new window of IDA which recognizes that poverty persists and development problems remain despite the welcome graduation of many countries to Middle Income status.

Robert Solow's model of "exogenous" economic growth driven by the global diffusion of technology is out of fashion because it is contradicted by empirical evidence of income divergence. Today, economic growth is considered "endogenous" and institutions are seen as central to the long-term growth process. At the same time, non-income measures of quality of life do see strong patterns of global growth and convergence. This suggests that institutions may be less important to achieve progress in broader quality of life while a larger and important role concerns the factors that drive exogenous change, including the flow of technology and ideas.

The Greek bail-out was highly controversial. An oft-heard assessment is that (i) the bail-out was a mistake, (ii) the political haggling over it was irrational. Contrary to this view, our analysis suggests that, given EMU's present political-economic set-up, (i) the bail-out was unavoidable and (ii) the lengthy process of political haggling leading to it was understandable. We have based our analysis on a political-economic, game-theoretic model that helps to understand why and how the parties involved in the Greek crisis arrived at the bail-out and on what conditions the final solution depended.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the concept and determinants of "sovereign risk" and the role of the credit risk rating agencies which serve internationally as the main reference instruments employed by economic agents to assess this risk. The paper also tries to identify macroeconomic variables which could be associated with sovereign risk ratings awarded by rating agencies to each country. After examining the indicators on an individual basis, their potential as a group is tested econometrically as a determinant of the class of sovereign risk into which national economies fall. Our results constitute a set of indicators which emerging economies would be well advised to improve upon.

This paper provides an empirical investigation of the medium-term determinants of international investment positions for a large sample of advanced and emerging economies. In addition to the usually considered drivers of foreign assets and liabilities, the analysis focuses on the role of structural policy indicators. Using cross-section and panel regression techniques the results suggest that structural policy settings are important medium-term drivers of capital flows, having a relatively large impact on gross and net foreign capital positions and on their composition. In particular, the results suggest that certain kinds of structural policy reform could help to narrow global imbalances, and to modify the composition of international capital flows towards more stable and productive sources.

Fiscal competition between governments to attract investment can take the form of business tax rebates, productivity-enhancing public infrastructure, tax holidays, accelerated depreciation allowances or loss carry-forward for income tax purposes. This paper surveys the recent theoretical and empirical economic literature and deals with three issues. First, it examines if the theoretical literature on fiscal competition and bidding races contribute to a better understanding of these phenomena in developing countries. Second, it examines whether FDI inflows in developing countries are sensitive to fiscal incentives and if there is empirical evidence of strategic behavior by developing country governments in order to attract FDI. Finally, it reviews the literature's conclusions about fiscal competition among local governments in developing countries.

Despite its several inherent weaknesses, Doing Business compiled by the World Bank is still the most widely used assessment of the trade facilitation status among developing country policymakers as well as economists. In this paper, we suggest that the use of trade costs calculated based on trade statistics in conjunction with Doing Business data is helpful in drawing up sector-specific trade facilitation policies. Unlike Doing Business, we can obtain long-term commodity-level trade costs if trade statistics are used.