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COMPETITIVENESS

The annual Global Competitiveness Report is widely recognized as the world's leading cross-country comparison of data and information relating to economic competitiveness and growth. This provides the most updated and recent data, rankings, and analysis of industrialized and emerging economies, and the latest thinking and research from prominent academics and international institution leaders on global competitiveness. This report is divided into three thematic parts. The first features the World Economic Forum's competitiveness indexes; the second includes outstanding contributions by renowned scholars on specific issues of competitiveness; and the last presents detailed profiles for each of the 125 economies covered, highlighting comparative strengths and weaknesses, as well as exhaustive section of data tables displaying relative rankings for more than 100 variables.

Competitiveness , Country ranking , Business Competitiveness Index , National competitiveness , Country profiles , Statistics , 

DEVELOPMENT AND INEQUALITY

Accounting for Inequality in India: Evidence from Household Expenditures

The paper utilizes consumption expenditure data from India’s National Sample Survey to shed light on the evolution of inequality between 1983 and 2004. Various measures of inequality show that inequality levels were relatively stable between 1983 and 1993, but increased between 1993 and 2004. However, the increases in inequality have not precluded reductions in poverty. They are also more of urban phenomena and can be accounted for by increased labor market returns to college education, especially among professional, technical, and managerial occupations. These findings are consistent with the importance of services, especially modern services, in driving economic growth in India. They also suggest that for the benefits of growth to be spread wider, greater dynamism in Indian agriculture and manufacturing will be essential.

ECONOMIC GROWTH

The Least Developed Countries Report, 2008: Growth, Poverty and the Terms of Development Partnership

The Report argues that the achievement of a more sustainable and inclusive type of economic growth requires effective national development strategies, which are supported by effective development aid and development-friendly international regimes for trade, investment and technology. Enhanced country ownership of national development strategies is critical for development and aid effectiveness. In order to reach these aims, LDCs are advised to implement aid management policies. These policies will allow aid to be more effective, providing a more powerful contribution to development. The proposals are critical to enhancing aid effectiveness and making the scale-up of aid work. They link to the assessment of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, adopted in March 2005, which will take place in Accra, Ghana, in September 2008.

Poor countries, Least developed countries, Poverty and growth, LDCs

ECONOMIC GROWTH - INDIA

This book is about India at the crossroads, its passage to this point, the obstacles that it still needs to negotiate and the future that it may enjoy. This looks at the processes that led to ten centuries of decline. The author examines the powerful economic and social forces that are working together to transform India beyond recognition. 

Indian growth story, Economic growth - India

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

World Economic Outlook (WEO): Financial Stress, Downturns, and Recoveries

The World Economic Outlook (WEO) presents the IMF staff's analysis and projections of economic developments at the global level, in major country groups (classified by region, stage of development, etc.), and in many individual countries. It focuses on major economic policy issues as well as on the analysis of economic developments and prospects. It is usually prepared twice a year, as documentation for meetings of the International Monetary and Financial Committee, and forms the main instrument of the IMF's global surveillance activities.

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

Asian Development Outlook 2008

The annual Asian Development Outlook aims to present an analysis of the recent past and forecasts for the next couple of years for the developing economies of Asia. In this Update to April's publication, regional economic growth for 2008 is taken down marginally to 7.5%, largely on unstable financial markets and elevated commodity prices. Regional growth in 2009 is expected to further decelerate to 7.2%. Inflation forecasts are revised up—reflecting rising global prices of food and fuel and earlier loose monetary policy—to 7.8% in 2008 and to 6.0% in 2009. The Update presents four thematic chapters discussing recent global commodity price rises and their impacts on developing Asia. They suggest that high international commodity prices are here to stay. But, given that demand-pull rather than cost-push factors are causing high prices, the role of monetary policy is still relevant in containing price pressures. Indeed, there has to be a reshifting of the basic monetary stance toward tightening throughout developing Asia, to prevent inflation from becoming entrenched.

Economy - Asia, Economic development - Asia

ECONOMY - ASIA PACIFIC

Economics, Economy - Asia Pacific, Development - Asia pacific

FINANCIAL CRISIS

Financial Times coverage on global financial crisis

Financial Times' coverage on the global financial crisis.

Global Financial crisis

FINANCIAL CRISIS

Global financial crisis 2008

This article provides an overview of the crisis with links for further, more detailed, coverage on global financial crisis of 2008.

FINANCIAL CRISIS

The global financial crisis emerged at an alarming rate. A global credit squeeze led to large falls in international stock markets and the world economy is weakening rapidly. The Pacific is largely shielded from the most immediate effects of the crisis, but it is not immune. This Policy Brief provides early advice on what the global financial crisis could mean for the Pacific and what it could do to lessen its adverse impacts. The key response should be to reinvogate structural reform, which is crucial to achieving sustained economic growth.

Global Financial Crisis

FINANCIAL CRISIS

The First Global Financial Crisis of the 21st Century

This book is a selection of VoxEU.org columns that deal with the subprime crisis. VoxEU.org is a portal for research-based policy analysis and commentary written by leading economists. It was launched in June 2007 with the aim of enriching the economic policy debate by making it easier for serious researchers to contribute and to make their contributions more accessible to the public.

FINANCIAL CRISIS

Dealing with the Impact of the Global Financial Crisis: Eleven Point Agenda for Indian Economy

J. Salcedo Cain, Rana Hasan, Rhoda Magsombol, and Ajay Tandon

The empirical findings of this paper are as follows. First, inequality in per capita expenditures has increased between 1993 and 2004 in terms of a number of measures of inequality. Second, increases in inequality have not, however, precluded reductions in poverty. In fact, per capita expenditures have increased for every statistical percentile group of individuals. As a result, the incidence of poverty has declined regardless of which poverty line one uses. Third, in so far as the increases in inequality are concerned, they are much more of an urban phenomenon. Fourth, increased labor market returns to college education account for a large extent of the increases in urban inequality. Moreover, the largest increases in per capita expenditures between 1993 and 2004 have been for households whose main economic activity entails employment in professional/technical and managerial occupations and in the services sector, especially modern services.

Financial crisis, Impact on Indian economy

FINANCIAL CRISIS & RISKS

This is the remarks prepared for IMF-FSF High-Level Meeting on the Recent Financial Turmoil and Policy Responses at Washington D.C. October 9, 2008.
The author briefly sets out reasons for the relative resilience shown by the Indian economy to the ongoing international financial markets’ crisis. This is followed by some discussion of the impact till date on the Indian economy and the likely implications in the near future. He then outlines approach to the management of the exposures of the Indian financial sector entities to the collapse of major financial institutions in the US.

Financial crisis, Impact on India and Asia

FINANCIAL CRISIS & RISKS

Global Financial Stability Report: obtaining Systemic Risks and Restoring Financial Soundness

 The Global Financial Stability Report provides semiannual assessments of global financial markets and addresses emerging market financing in a global context

Financial stability, Global financial risks

FINANCIAL CRISIS & RISKS

The present report looks at global risks from a range of different perspectives. The first part of the report focuses on four emerging issues that are shaping the global risk landscape: systemic financial risk, food security, supply chains and the role of energy. The second part of the report presents our collective assessment of global risks in 2008, based on a revised taxonomy of risk, and building on the assessments of past years. In the third part, we look at the methodological hurdles around the representation of interconnectedness and demonstrate how risk “squeezing” and homogenization of risk are changing the way we perceive risk globally. In the fourth part of the report, we examine the role of financial markets as tools of risk transfer and risk mitigation for an increasingly broad range of global risks. Finally, in the fifth part, we take forward our discussions on the construction of risk mitigation coalitions and country risk management, establishing a set of principles for country risk management which the Global Risk Network will develop in 2008-2009.

Global Risks, Financial crisis

FINANCIAL CRISIS & RISKS

This report explores these future drivers of growth, as well as the risks and opportunities emanating from three issues identified in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report 2008, i.e. financial risk, energy and food security.

Global growth risks, Financial crisis, Business Risks

FINANCIAL CRISIS & RISKS

This report presents the latest insights into trends, potential consequences and mitigation strategies relevant to key risk areas facing India, including Economic Security, Energy Security, Agriculture and Food Security, and National Security.

Economic Security, Energy Security, Agriculture and Food Security, and National Security

FINANCIAL CRISIS & RISKS

The purpose of this paper is to propose such a framework, and then to study the implied mapping from assumptions to policy implications. The questions that this framework will help to address include: Should the IMF act as a lender of last resort that lends exclusively to “illiquid but solvent” countries? Does official crisis lending generate moral hazard and, if so, through which channels? What should be the main purpose of conditionality? Should it be to minimize the welfare cost of crises, to ensure that the IMF’s loans get repaid, or to ensure that foreign investors are repaid? Should conditionality be applied only ex post, accompanying IMF assistance in the event of crisis, or also ex ante, as a way of pre-qualifying countries that would be eligible for crisis loans?

Financial crisis, Crisis prevention, Fund role, Conditionality, Moral hazard, Spillovers

FINANCIAL CRISIS & RISKS

This paper presents a new database on the timing of systemic banking crises and policy responses to resolve them. The database covers the universe of systemic banking crises for the period 1970-2007, with detailed data on crisis containment and resolution policies for 42 crisis episodes, and also includes data on the timing of currency crises and sovereign debt crises. The database extends and builds on the Caprio, Klingebiel, Laeven, and Noguera (2005) banking crisis database, and is the most complete and detailed database on banking crises to date.

Financial crisis, Banking sector, Banking crisis, Sovereign debt, Databases, Currencies, Spillovers, Economic recovery, Fiscal sustainability, Working Paper

INFLATION

Since mid-2007 basic food prices have rocketed with disastrous consequences for poor consumers. The spike in international market prices through the first half of 2008 has now subsided. Still prices of rice, wheat, corn (maize), and edible oils remain well above the levels of just a year ago and are likely to remain elevated and volatile for years to come. Two separate dynamics need to be understood in order for countries to make necessary adjustments. A gradual rise in food prices has been under way since at least 2004 with three general and fundamental factors at work: rapid economic growth in the People’s Republic of China and India especially put upward pressure on prices as demand simply outpaced supply; a sustained decline in the United States dollar since mid-decade added to the pressures on dollar-denominated international market prices; and a combination of high and rising fuel prices coupled with legislative mandates to increase production of biofuels has established a firm link between petroleum prices and food prices. The causes of price spikes are crop-specific. Drought and disease in 2007 caused wheat prices to jump, and supplies of edible oil were reduced as farmers in the United States shifted acreage out of soybeans into corn for nonfood uses (ethanol). Rice is the clearest example of crop-specific causes—the price spike was driven by export bans that were aimed at helping contain domestic food price inflation in exporting countries, but had the unintended effect of setting off panic as supplies to the already thin world rice market were sharply reduced. Asia will need several years of good rice harvests in order to stabilize the situation and reduce the exposure of the poor to another shock in food prices. This will not be easy to achieve as input costs are driven higher by high energy prices. Thus, it seems unlikely that world food prices will return to the declining trend seen between the mid-1970s and the first few years of this century.

Inflation, Food prices

INNOVATION

India's changing innovation system: achievements, challenges, and opportunities for cooperation

Innovation, India and USA, Infrastructure for research and innovation, Knowledge economy, Manufacturing innovation

INVESTMENT

World Investment Report 2008: Transnational Corporations, and the Infrastructure Challenge

World Investment Report 2008 (WIR08) is the 18th in a series published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The Report analyses the latest trends in foreign direct investment (FDI) and has a special focus in 2008 on the role of transnational corporations (TNCs) in infrastructure development.

Foreign investment, World investment, Transnational corporations, Foreign direct investment, FDI

LEADERSHIP

This book endeavours to enlighten the readers on the art of leadership, a practiced over the years; and also, emphasises the importance of a conscious approach on the subject.

LEADERSHIP

Giving is an inspiring book at how each of us can change the world. First it reveals the extraordinary and innovative efforts now being made by companies and organizations - and by individuals - to solve problems and save lives both "down the street and around the world." Then it urges us to seek out what each of us, "regardless of income, available time, age, and skills," can do to help, to give people a chance to live out their dreams.

MANUFACTURING

India has undertaken extensive reforms in its manufacturing sector in the last two decades. However, an acceleration of growth in manufacturing, and a concomitant increase in employment, has eluded India. What might be holding the sector back? Using Annual Survey of Industries data at the 3-digit level, and difference in differences estimates, this paper finds that the postreform performance of the manufacturing sector is heterogeneous across industries. In particular, industries that were dependent on infrastructure or external finance and were labor-intensive have not been able to reap the maximum benefits of reforms. The results point to the importance of infrastructure development and financial sector development for the manufacturing sector’s growth to accelerate further. They also emphasize the need to clearly identify and address the factors inhibiting the growth of labor-intensive industries.

Manufacturing sector - India, Growth constrains

MEDIA

MERGERS & ACQUISITION

Cold Steel is the gripping story of the biggest and most hard-fought industry takeover of recent years. At the heart of the story are two companies and two men dubbed the 'Stallions of Steel' . Lakshmi Mittal is a self-made Indian industrialist who grew up walking on the bare floors of a bouse built by his grandfather and sleeping on rope beds. Today he is the richest man in Great Britain, and the fifth richest man in the world. Fast-paced and compelling, Cold Steel brings to life the cut and thrust of big businesses at war with each other - Mittal and Dolle led armies made up of hundreds of the world's leading investment bankers, takeover lawyers, hedge funds, lobbyists and five maverick billionaires.

Mergers & Acquisition, Steel industry, Story of biggest industry takeover in the world,

PUBLIC SECTOR

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

In this essential new book, Friedman takes a fresh and provocation look at two of the biggest challenges we face today: the global environmental crisis and America's surprising loss of focus and national purpose since 9/11. It is a groundbreaking account of where we stand now, and shows us how the solutions to these two big problems are linked - how we can restore the world and revive America at the same time.

TRADE POLICY

TRADE POLICY

Effects of Hub-and-Spoke Free Trade Agreements on Trade: Panel Data Analysis

Overlapping free trade agreements (FTAs) have given rise to hub-and-spoke FTAs that may promote trade by giving an export advantage to the FTA hub country. We empirically investigate the effect of hub-and-spoke FTAs on trade using panel data consisting of 99 countries and covering the period 1960–1999. Our empirical analysis of the panel data yields three notable findings. First, FTAs have a significant and positive impact on trade. Second, hub-and-spoke FTAs increase trade above and beyond FTAs, and thus reinforce the trade-boosting effects of FTAs. Third, our results imply an annual growth rate of 4.9% in bilateral trade and hence a doubling of trade after 14½ years between FTA partners. Our results indicate that the hub-and-spoke nature of FTAs has a positive effect on trade, in addition to the direct, trade-liberalizing effect of FTAs. Therefore, in a world of overlapping FTAs, a more accurate empirical analysis of the relationship between FTAs and trade calls for taking into account the hub-and-spoke characteristic of FTAs.

TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT

Trade and Development Report 2008: Commodity prices, capital flows and the financing of investment

The Trade and Development Report 2008, subtitled "Commodity Prices, Capital Flows and the Financing of Investment” highlights the paradox that the “capital poor” developing world is exporting capital to the “capital rich” developed countries. This "puzzle", which defies mainstream economic theory, is all the more intriguing as many capital-exporting countries have been achieving higher rates of investment and growth than those that continue to rely on net capital imports. Against this background the Report suggests to shift the focus in financial policies from households "putting more money aside" and imports of "foreign savings", to the reinvestment of profits and credit creation through the domestic banking system. As shown by an increasing number of countries in recent years, dependence on foreign capital inflows can often be avoided by policies aiming at a "competitive" exchange rate. In other cases, however, large increases in official development assistance are indispensable not only to foster the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, but also to improve infrastructure and increase productive capacities, a condition for sustained growth, employment generation and poverty reduction beyond that date.
In its analysis of global economic prospects, the Report says that uncertainty and instability in international financial, currency and commodity markets are contributing to a gloomy outlook for the world economy and present considerable risks for the developing world. The situation would be exacerbated if monetary policy becomes more restrictive in response to the price effects of commodity imports, rather than providing an expansionary stimulus to counter the recessionary tendencies.

Education, Case studies in Industry - Academia collaboration, Industry Institute partnership

TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT

The UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics 2008 provides a comprehensive collection of statistical data relevant to the analysis of international trade, investment and development, for individual countries and for economic and trade groupings. The publication presents consolidated reference statistics considered of particular importance for describing how developing countries have evolved in the context of globalization. Data are presented in an analytical way in order to facilitate their interpretation.

Trade and Development, International Statistics