Suchergebnisse

Bangladesh has achieved robust economic growth over the past 10 years, with real GDP growing by more than 6 percent on average each year. This paper investigates whether the country will be able to maintain such high levels of growth going forward. A simple growth model calibrated to the Bangladesh economy is used to analyze various growth scenarios. The main finding of the paper is that it is crucial for the country to focus on reforms to raise total factor productivity (TFP) growth, to sustain the high real GDP growth seen in the recent past. The country will fail to achieve high growth in absence of strong TFP growth despite meeting the levels of investment as outlined in the Seventh Five Year Plan. The model is also used to gain insights on government debt sustainability given different growth scenarios. The analysis highlights the significance of meeting revenue targets in maintaining sustainability, considering the planned expansion in expenditures.

We assess the fiscal composition-growth nexus, using a large country panel, accounting for the usually encountered econometric pitfalls. Our results show that revenues have no significant impact on growth whereas expenditures have negative effects. The same is true for the OECD with the addition that government revenue has a negative impact on growth. From our results, taxes on income are not growth enhancing, as well as public wages, interest payments, subsidies and government consumption. Spending on education and health boosts growth; and there is weak evidence supporting causality running from expenditures and revenues to output.

In the decade of the 2010s, the pace of economic growth in Russia slowed down to an annual rate of below 2% and most forecasts suggest that this is will be the new "normal" for the Russian economy at least in the medium-term. While politically and socially disappointing, such a growth slowdown is unavoidable due to adverse demographic trends. A combination of a shrinking working-age population and population aging must lead to a lower growth pace as compared to the period when the working-age population was still increasing and the effects of population aging were limited (the decade of the 2000s). Compensatory measures such as a gradual increase in the retirement age and an open labor migration policy, although economically positive, can only partly mitigate the negative effects of a shrinking domestic labor force. In this respect, Russia does not differ from other European countries and some Asian countries. However, demography and shrinking labor supply cannot fully explain low potential growth. Stagnation in total factor productivity is another reason. It results from a poor business and investment climate, difficulty in diversifying away from the dominant role of the hydrocarbon sector, and deteriorating political and economic relations with the US and EU which limit trade, investment and innovation opportunities. To increase its potential growth, Russia needs comprehensive economic and institutional reforms that, in turn, will be conditioned by political reforms and by improved economic and political relationships with the US, the EU and Russia's neighbors.

In the decade of the 2010s, the pace of economic growth in Russia slowed down to an annual rate of below 2% and most forecasts suggest that this is will be the new "normal" for the Russian economy at least in the medium-term. While politically and socially disappointing, such a growth slowdown is unavoidable due to adverse demographic trends. A combination of a shrinking working-age population and population aging must lead to a lower growth pace as compared to the period when the working-age population was still increasing and the effects of population aging were limited (the decade of the 2000s). Compensatory measures such as a gradual increase in the retirement age and an open labor migration policy, although economically positive, can only partly mitigate the negative effects of a shrinking domestic labor force. In this respect, Russia does not differ from other European countries and some Asian countries. However, demography and shrinking labor supply cannot fully explain low potential growth. Stagnation in total factor productivity is another reason. It results from a poor business and investment climate, difficulty in diversifying away from the dominant role of the hydrocarbon sector, and deteriorating political and economic relations with the US and EU which limit trade, investment and innovation opportunities. To increase its potential growth, Russia needs comprehensive economic and institutional reforms that, in turn, will be conditioned by political reforms and by improved economic and political relationships with the US, the EU and Russia's neighbors.

In the decade of the 2010s, the pace of economic growth in Russia slowed down to an annual rate of below 2% and most forecasts suggest that this is will be the new "normal" for the Russian economy at least in the medium-term. While politically and socially disappointing, such a growth slowdown is unavoidable due to adverse demographic trends. A combination of a shrinking working-age population and population aging must lead to a lower growth pace as compared to the period when the working-age population was still increasing and the effects of population aging were limited (the decade of the 2000s). Compensatory measures such as a gradual increase in the retirement age and an open labor migration policy, although economically positive, can only partly mitigate the negative effects of a shrinking domestic labor force. In this respect, Russia does not differ from other European countries and some Asian countries. However, demography and shrinking labor supply cannot fully explain low potential growth. Stagnation in total factor productivity is another reason. It results from a poor business and investment climate, difficulty in diversifying away from the dominant role of the hydrocarbon sector, and deteriorating political and economic relations with the US and EU which limit trade, investment and innovation opportunities. To increase its potential growth, Russia needs comprehensive economic and institutional reforms that, in turn, will be conditioned by political reforms and by improved economic and political relationships with the US, the EU and Russia's neighbors.