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The economic and financial development are examined in Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, representing the Middle East and North Africa region. This paper demonstrates that improvements in the standard of living will only be attained with fiscal and political reforms.

The paper illustrates a potential bias that can arise when firm location choices are not considered in estimating the contribution of economic geography to industry performance. Analysis using microdata of Indian manufacturing firms shows there is an upward bias in the contribution of economic geography to productivity when firm location choices are not considered in the analysis.

The author investigates to what extent leading firms located within a successful Italian furniture district behave as gatekeepers of knowledge. Empirical analysis has been carried out on a sample of technicians working within firms’ knowledge intensive units.

The paper presents a brief overview of the current state of financial development in Chile, comparing it with other countries. After providing a short summary of the most important financial reforms of past decades, the authors highlight the main strengths and weaknesses of Chile’s financial markets. (In Spanish)

The paper discusses the implications on sector growth within the context of a specialization model based on factor endowment. The empirical literature is examined, which reveals that the only way for the economy to alter its specialization patterns toward the production of goods that are characteristic of higher development is to change its endowment of resources accordingly. (In Spanish)

The purpose of this paper is to provide a decomposition of economic growth in Chile, based on the contribution of capital, labor, and total factor productivity (TFP) and to study the determinants of TFP behavior in Chile since 1960 to date. Results indicate that the contribution of TFP to growth differs significantly from one period to another. (In Spanish)

The authors argue that part of the currency union effect on trade is indirect. Currency unions foster foreign direct investment (FDI), which promotes trade due to complementary effects between trade and FDI. Using data for 22 OECD countries,they find that half of the euro impact on trade is driven by additional FDI.

According to the authors, the emergence of China as an economic power has had both a positive and a negative effect on the Taiwanese economy as well. Rapid economic development in China and its emergence as a major exporter of manufactured products since the late 1970s has had two major effects on its neighboring Asian economies.

The study uses a growth accounting framework to assess the effect of geographical concentration on economic growth. Findings indicate population density to be a good candidate for evaluating the externality influence, since a significant portion of the variation in economic growth over U.S. counties and BEA regions is explained by differences in population density.

Increasingly, developing countries embrace foreign direct investment (FDI) and simultaneously
pursue economic integration with developed countries. Foreign investment is subject to sovereign risk and free trade agreements may serve as a commitment mechanism in order to achieve higher sustainable levels of FDI. The paper shows that such agreements, by inducing sunk investments in expanding export sectors, can indeed increase the level of self-enforcing FDI.