The Political Economy of Aid Flows to North Africa

This paper provides an historical overview of aid flows to North Africa. It assesses the aid allocation process and argues that past aid flows to the region have been heavily influenced by donor political interests. This has reduced the effectiveness of aid which, with the exception of Tunisia, has not been associated with sustained economic growth. The Arab Spring provides an opportunity to reappraise aid flows to North Africa and it is argued that future flows need to support the democratization process, generate pro-poor growth, support social safety nets and address the pressing issues of widening inequalities and unemployment

Letter from Jaffrey, New Hampshire: business is kabooming

Begin with a glittering silver chrysanthemum, 1,000 feet wide, exploding over the Washington Monument on the Fourth of July. Proceed to Boston, where, with each cymbal crash of the "American Symphony," the pistils of giant red flowers strobe 1,000 feet above the Charles River. Take your pick of 700 other fireworks displays from Miami to Minnesota to Montreal. If you could follow a string of colored stars from all these productions back to their source, the trail would end at a tan, brick, and metal building on a rural road in southwestern New Hampshire. Here, behind a door guarded by jade lions, the 22 employees of Atlas PyroVision Productions choreograph the displays that illuminate the nation.Small business ; Manufactures ; New Hampshire

The impact of the Asia crisis on U.S. industry: an almost-free lunch?

Despite predictions to the contrary, the Asia crisis had only modest overall effects on the United States. The expected surge in import volumes did not materialize and the drop in demand for U.S. exports was not enough to slow the nation's robust economy. Nevertheless, these overall effects could have masked other, larger effects in particularly vulnerable U.S. industries. To examine this possibility, the author conducts a sector-level analysis of the turmoil's impact. He concludes that, with the exception of the steel industry, imports from Asia do not compete directly with U.S. products. Accordingly, an appreciation in the dollar with respect to Asian currencies leads to consumption gains with little or no domestic pain.Financial crises - Asia ; Industries ; Asia

International labor standards in the world trade organization and the international labor organization, commentary

World Trade Organization

The Economic Impact of IMF and World Bank Programs in the Middle East and North Africa: A Case Study of Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, 1983-2004

This paper examines whether the economic reforms attached to IMF and World Bank policy-based lending in the Middle East and North Africa have stimulated sustained economic growth. In order to investigate this, we chose four countries to study in depth: Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. These were chosen as they have been put forward by both the IMF and the World Bank as successful reformers who, for prolonged periods, carried out World Bank and IMF guided economic reform programs. We examine the sources of growth during the reform period in these four countries, looking at intensive versus extensive growth, growth in the tradables sector versus the non-tradables sector and growth caused by the reforms versus growth caused by exogenous factors. We discovered that the reform programs in all four countries were associated with spurts of economic growth, but that, apart from Tunisia, this was not sustained, with intensive growth in the tradables sector stimulated by the reform program