What drives liberal policies in developing countries?

This paper investigates why governments in some developing countries have adopted more liberal policies than others. To construct a composite policy index, the paper applies a robust principal components analysis to Washington Consensus policy variables. The paper shows that income growth is higher in countries with more liberal policies. Using a Bayesian approach which addresses the model uncertainty problem, this study finds that government policies are more liberal in countries which possess right-wing or centrist governments, have greater political stability, and are former Spanish colonies. In contrast, countries which are less ethnically diverse, are former French colonies, and have a military leader tend to implement less liberal policies.liberal policy, economic freedom, economic growth, Bayesian model averaging, principal components

Macroeconomic policy and the distribution of growth rates

We examine the view that high-quality macroeconomic policy is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for economic growth. We first construct a new index of the quality of macroeconomic policy. We then directly compare growth rate distributions across countries with good and bad policies; use Bayesian methods to examine the partial correlation between policy and growth; and outline how growth and steady-state income levels might have differed, had all countries achieved good policy outcomes. One finding is that bad macroeconomic policies can be offset by other factors, but the fastest-growing countries in our sample all shared high-quality macroeconomic management.macroeconomic policy, economic growth, Washington Consensus, Bayesian Model Averaging, counterfactuals

Understanding policy differences : causes and effects

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Macroeconomic Policy and the Distribution of Growth Rates

We examine the view that high-quality macroeconomic policy is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for economic growth. We first construct a new index of the quality of macroeconomic policy. We then directly compare growth rate distributions across countries with good and bad policies; use Bayesian methods to examine the partial correlation between policy and growth; and outline how growth and steady-state income levels might have differed, had all countries achieved good policy outcomes. One finding is that bad macroeconomic policies can be offset by other factors, but the fastest-growing countries in our sample all shared high-quality macroeconomic management.Bayesian Model Averaging; counterfactuals; economic growth; macroeconomic policy; Washington Consensus

Macroeconomic Stability and the Distribution of Growth Rates

It is often argued that macroeconomic instability can form a binding constraint on economic growth. Drawing on a new index of stability, threshold estimation is used to divide developing economies into two growth regimes, depending on a threshold level of stability. For the more stable group of countries, the output benefits of investment are greater, conditional convergence is faster, and measures of institutional quality have more explanatory power, suggesting that instability forms a binding constraint for the less stable group. Macroeconomic stability is also shown to dominate several other candidates for identifying distinct growth regimes. Copyright The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / the world bank . All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected], Oxford University Press.