Macroeconomic stability in developing countries - How much is enough?

In the 1990s macroeconomic policies improved in a majority of developing countries, but the growth dividend from such improvement fell short of expectations, and a policy agenda focused on stability turned out to be associated with a multiplicity of financial crises. The authors take a retrospective look at the content and implementation of the macroeconomic reform agenda of the 1990s. They review the progress achieved with fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate policies across the developing world, and the effectiveness of the changing policy framework in promoting stability and growth. The main lesson is that slow growth and frequent crises resulted, more often than not, from shortcomings in the reform agenda of the 1990s. These shortcomings essentially concern the depth and breadth of the macroeconomic reform agenda, its attention to macroeconomic vulnerabilities, and the complementary reforms outside the macroeconomic sphere.Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Macroeconomic Management,Economic Theory&Research,Achieving Shared Growth,Environmental Economics&Policies,Inequality

Real Exchange Rates, Saving and Growth: Is there a Link?

The view that policies directed at the real exchange rate can have an important effect on economic growth has been gaining adherents in recent years. Unlike the traditional “misalignment" view that temporary departures of the real exchange rate from its equilibrium level harm growth by distorting a key relative price in the economy, the recent literature stresses the growth effects of the equilibrium real exchange rate itself, with the claim being that a depreciated equilibrium real exchange rate promotes economic growth. While there is no consensus on the precise channels through which this effect is generated, an increasingly common view in policy circles points to saving as the channel of transmission, with the claim that a depreciated real exchange rate raises the domestic saving rate -- which in turn stimulates growth by increasing the rate of capital accumulation. This paper offers a preliminary exploration of this claim. Drawing from standard analytical models, stylized facts on saving and real exchange rates, and existing empirical research on saving determinants, the paper assesses the link between the real exchange rate and saving. Overall, the conclusion is that saving is unlikely to provide the mechanism through which the real exchange rate affects growth.real exchange rate, saving, growth

Real exchange rates, saving and growth : is there a link ?

The view that policies directed at the real exchange rate can have an important effect on economic growth has been gaining adherents in recent years. Unlike the traditional"misalignment"view that temporary departures of the real exchange rate from its equilibrium level harm growth by distorting a key relative price in the economy, the recent literature stresses the growth effects of the equilibrium real exchange rate itself, with the claim being that a depreciated equilibrium real exchange rate promotes economic growth. While there is no consensus on the precise channels through which this effect is generated, an increasingly common view in policy circles points to saving as the channel of transmission, with the claim that a depreciated real exchange rate raises the domestic saving rate -- which in turn stimulates growth by increasing the rate of capital accumulation. This paper offers a preliminary exploration of this claim. Drawing from standard analytical models, stylized facts on saving and real exchange rates, and existing empirical research on saving determinants, the paper assesses the link between the real exchange rate and saving. Overall, the conclusion is that saving is unlikely to provide the mechanism through which the real exchange rate affects growth.Macroeconomic Management,Economic Stabilization,Debt Markets,Emerging Markets,Currencies and Exchange Rates

Magnetismo romántico : el paciente. La mujer. La república

Basándose en el análisis de casos se pretende mostrar algunos aspectos del magnetismo animal que se desarrolló en la Alemania de las primeras décadas del siglo XIX, que constituyen, o al menos implican, importantes innovaciones en el marco de la práctica médica contemporánea. Estos aspectos son: el reconocimiento de la importancia de la palabra del paciente y de su propio saber sobre el cuerpo; la emergencia de la figura de la mujer como sujeto autónomo y singular en el que se acentúan los aspectos señalados en el punto anterior; y, para terminar, las potencialidades renovadoras de dicha teoría médica en el ámbito de la política

Reseñas

Dietrich von ENGELHARDT, Medizin in der Literatur der Neuzeit (Bd. I, Darstellung und Deutung

La profilaxis del sida. Análisis de una estrategia

El presente estudio pretende poner de relieve ciertos problemas surgidos en el planteamiento de las estrategias de profilaxis adoptadas frente al sida. Algunos de ellos han sido ya objeto de reflexión, e incluso de corrección -al menos de forma parcial aunque persisten otros que pueden ser importantes, como son los derivados de la definición más reciente de la enfermedad, que la concibe como de transmisión sexual, y los ligados a la actitud de los diversos receptores del mensaje profiláctico. El trabajo intenta poner de relieve las consecuencias prácticas de determinados asertos de tipo teórico relativos a la enfermedad y su profilaxis

Reseñas

Werner E. GERABEK, Friedrich Wilhem Joseph Schelling und die medizin der romantik. Studien zu schellings wirzburger period