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Regional Economic Outlook: Middle East and Central Asia underlines that the region has continued to experience strong growth in 2008, and the short-term outlook is generally favorable. However, inflation has emerged as a key issue, and while the global credit crunch has thus far had a limited impact on regional financial markets, the financial turmoil and slowdown in developed economies could lower growth in the period ahead. Policies will need to focus on tightening the fiscal and monetary stance where appropriate, with greater exchange rate flexibility, and continuing efforts to strengthen the resilience of financial sectors.
Global growth is in low gear, and the drivers of activity are changing. These dynamics raise new policy challenges. Advanced economies are growing again but must continue financial sector repair, pursue fiscal consolidation, and spur job growth. Emerging market economies face the dual challenges of slowing growth and tighter global financial conditions. This issue of the World Economic Outlook examines the potential spillovers from these transitions and the appropriate policy responses. Chapter 3 explores how output comovements are influenced by policy and financial shocks, growth surprises, and other linkages. Chapter 4 assesses why certain emerging market economies were able to avoid the classical boom-and-bust cycle in the face of volatile capital flows during the global financial crisis.
The global economic crisis has taken a toll on the Middle East and Central Asia region, but appropriate policy responses have helped mitigate the impact. Looking ahead, the region's oil exporters are expected to benefit from rising oil prices as the world economy begins to pull out of an unparalleled post-World War II recession. Oil importers, however, are likely to continue to face continued headwinds that may delay an uptake in growth. Where feasible, countries should continue to support domestic demand to lessen the impact of the crisis on the poor while maintaining a focus on debt sustainability. For the region's low-income countries, higher donor support will be needed to maintain economic development. Across the region, governments should further strengthen financial systems and be careful not to lose momentum on structural reforms. Published biannually in May and October.
South Asia has experienced significant progress in improving human and physical capital over the past few decades. Within the region, India has become a global economic powerhouse with enormous development potential ahead. To foster human and economic development, India has shown a strong commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Agenda. This paper focuses on the medium-term development challenges that South Asia, and in particular India, faces to ensure substantial progress along the SDGs by 2030. We estimate the additional spending needed in critical areas of human capital (health and education) and physical capital (water and sanitation, electricity, and roads). We document progress on these five sectors for India relative to other South Asian countries and discuss implications for policy and reform.
This edition of the World Economic Outlook explores how a dramatic escalation of the financial crisis in September 2008 provoked an unprecedented contraction of activity and trade, despite active policy responses. It presents economic projections for 2009 and 2010, and also looks beyond the current crisis, considering factors that will shape the landscape of the global economy over the medium term, as businesses and households seek to repair the damage. The analysis also outlines the difficult policy challenges presented by the overwhelming imperative to take all steps necessary to restore financial stability and revive the global economy, and the longer-run need for national actions to be mutually supporting. The first of two analytical chapters, "What Kind of Economic Recovery?" explores the shape of the eventual recovery. The second, "The Transmission of Financial Stress from Advanced to Emerging and Developing Economies," focuses on the role of external financial linkages and financial stress in transmitting economic shocks.
The world economy is experiencing a very strong but uneven recovery, with many emerging market and developing economies facing obstacles to vaccination. The global outlook remains uncertain, with major risks around the path of the pandemic and the possibility of financial stress amid large debt loads. Policy makers face a difficult balancing act as they seek to nurture the recovery while safeguarding price stability and fiscal sustainability. A comprehensive set of policies will be required to promote a strong recovery that mitigates inequality and enhances environmental sustainability, ultimately putting economies on a path of green, resilient, and inclusive development. Prominent among the necessary policies are efforts to lower trade costs so that trade can once again become a robust engine of growth. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Global Economic Prospects. The Global Economic Prospects is a World Bank Group Flagship Report that examines global economic developments and prospects, with a special focus on emerging market and developing economies, on a semiannual basis (in January and June). Each edition includes analytical pieces on topical policy challenges faced by these economies.
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented shock to firms with adverse consequences for existing productive capacities. At the same time, digitalization has increasingly been touted as a key pathway for mitigating economic losses from the pandemic, and we expect firms facing digital constraints to be less resilient to supply shocks. This paper uses firm-level data to investigate whether digitally-enabled firms have been able to mitigate economic losses arising from the pandemic better than digitally-constrained firms in the Middle East and Central Asia region using a difference-in-differences approach. Controlling for demand conditions, we find that digitally-enabled firms faced a lower decline in sales by about 4 percentage points during the pandemic compared to digitally-constrained firms, suggesting that digitalization acted as a hedge during the pandemic. Against this backdrop, our results suggest that policymakers need to close the digital gap and accelerate firms’ digital transformation. This will be essential for economies to bounce back from the pandemic, and build the foundations for future resilience.
Departmental papers are usually focused on a specific economic topic, country, or region. They are prepared in a timely way to support the outreach needs of the IMF’s area and functional departments.
“The crisis has deeply impacted virtually every economy in the world, and although growth has returned, much progress in the fight against poverty has been lost. More difficult international conditions in the years to come will mean that developing countries will have to place even more emphasis on improving domestic economic conditions to achieve the kind of growth that can durably eradicate poverty.� —Justin Yifu Lin, Chief Economist and Senior Vice President The World Bank 'Global Economic Prospects 2010: Crisis, Finance, and Growth' explores both the short- and medium-term impacts of the financial crisis on developing countries. Although global growth has resumed, the recovery is fragile, and unless business and consumer demand strengthen, the world economy could slow down again. Even if, as appears likely, a double-dip recession is avoided, the recovery is expected to be slow. High unemployment and widespread restructuring will continue to characterize the global economy for the next several years. Already, the crisis has provoked large-scale human suffering. Some 64 million more people around the world are expected to be living on less than a $1.25 per day by the end of 2010, and between 30,000 and 50,000 more infants may have died of malnutrition in 2009 in Sub-Saharan Africa, than would have been the case if the crisis had not occurred. Over the medium term, economic growth is expected to recover. But increased risk aversion, a necessary and desirable tightening of financial regulations in high-income countries, and measures to reduce the exposure of developing economies to external shocks are likely to make finance scarcer and more costly than it was during the boom period. As a result, just as the ample liquidity of the early 2000s prompted an investment boom and an acceleration in developing-country potential output, higher costs will likely yield a slowing in developing-country potential growth rates of between 0.2 and 0.7 percentage points, and as much as an 8 percent decline in potential output over the medium term. In the longer term, however, developing countries can more than offset the implications of more expensive international finance by reducing the cost of capital channeled through their domestic financial markets. For more information, please visit www.worldbank.org/gep2010. To access Prospects for the Global Economy, an online companion publication, please visit www.worldbank.org/globaloutlook.
Rising densities of human settlements, migration and transport to reduce distances to market, and specialization and trade facilitated by fewer international divisions are central to economic development. The transformations along these three dimensions density, distance, and division are most noticeable in North America, Western Europe, and Japan, but countries in Asia and Eastern Europe are changing in ways similar in scope and speed. 'World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography' concludes that these spatial transformations are essential, and should be encouraged. The conclusion is not without controversy. Slum-dwellers now number a billion, but the rush to cities continues. Globalization is believed to benefit many, but not the billion people living in lagging areas of developing nations. High poverty and mortality persist among the world's 'bottom billion', while others grow wealthier and live longer lives. Concern for these three billion often comes with the prescription that growth must be made spatially balanced. The WDR has a different message: economic growth is seldom balanced, and efforts to spread it out prematurely will jeopardize progress. The Report: documents how production becomes more concentrated spatially as economies grow. proposes economic integration as the principle for promoting successful spatial transformations. revisits the debates on urbanization, territorial development, and regional integration and shows how today's developers can reshape economic geography.