Agricultural Statistics
Who benefits from distortions?
Morten Jerven
Pages 1 - 10
In developing economies the data on agricultural production are weak. Because these data are assembled using competing methods and assumptions, the final series are subject to political pressure, particularly when the government is subsidizing agricultural inputs. This paper draws on debates on the ... Read more
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Averting a Global Food Crisis
Policy and data needs
Keith Boyfield
Pages 11 - 34
The World Bank’s Food Price Watch reached a new historic peak in August 2012. High and volatile food prices spell real hardship for the world’s poor, and supply problems due to volatile climatic conditions have exacerbated the surge in global food prices. Investment in agriculture is handicapped by ... Read more
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Pastoralism: Africa’s Invisible Economic Powerhouse?
James MacGregor & Ced Hesse
Pages 35 - 70
Many elements of developing economies are missing from their national accounts. This is more than a statistical dilemma. It hampers the development of government policy, results in under-investment in those missing elements and simultaneous over-investment in others, and helps to paint an incomplete ... Read more
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Going Beyond Averages
Data, development aid and context
M.G. Quibria
Pages 71 - 80
One of the persistent, unresolved controversies of economic development is the effectiveness of development assistance – whether foreign aid contributes to economic development. This article argues that this controversy is largely an artefact of a methodology that focuses on the ‘averages’ and pays ... Read more
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Life after Debt
The Greek PSI and its aftermath
Miranda Xafa
Pages 81 - 102
The Greek debt exchange (PSI) that took place in March 2012 was unprecedented in two ways: it was the biggest sovereign default ever and the first within the euro area. This paper examines the debt exchange and the subsequent debt buyback with a view to drawing lessons for policymakers and market pa ... Read more
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The Liquidity Consequences of the Euro Area Sovereign Debt Crisis
William A. Allen & Richhild Moessner
Pages 103 - 126
We examine the liquidity effects of the euro area sovereign debt crisis on euro area banks as a group, on intra-euro area financial flows and on international liquidity. The lending capacity of the euro area banking system has been much weakened, despite the remarkable growth of the operations of th ... Read more
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The ‘Good Global Citizen’ Remit of the IMF
Reforming international economic and financial cooperation
Biagio Bossone & Roberta Marra
Pages 127 - 140
In the highly globalized world economy of our times, where markets are tightly integrated, setting domestic economic policy with a view simply to keeping one’s house in order is no longer optimal. New responsibilities follow for each member of the community of countries from the recognition that the ... Read more
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The Collapse of Consensus
The contemporary confusion over macroeconomic policy
Graham Bird
Pages 141 - 152
Consensus in macroeconomics helps policymakers formulate a coherent and logically consistent group of policies. At different times in the post-war era there has been consensus around first Keynesian and then monetarist ideas. Economic crises have frequently brought one type of consensus to an end, a ... Read more
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