Macroeconomic Policy Lessons from LDC'S

Robustness and Macroeconomic Policy

This paper considers the design of macroeconomic policies in the face of uncertainty. In recent years, several economists have advocated that when policymakers are uncertain about the environment they face and find it difficult to assign precise probabilities to the alternative scenarios that may characterize this environment, they should design policies to be robust in the sense that they mini...

Macroeconomic Policy and Performance

Lessons from a policy master.

On a warm, dark evening in early October, I had the privilege of finding myself in Pretoria, South Africa with a group of nurse colleagues from many southern African nations, listening as various leaders brought messages of greetings before we were to share dinner. The minister of health had fallen ill that day and was replaced at the last minute by her director general. The minister’s illness ...

Policy Lessons from Recent Experience

This paper investigates the macroeconomic challenges created by a surge in aid inflows. It develops an analytical framework for examining possible policy responses to increased aid, in terms of absorption and spending of aid—where the central bank controls absorption through monetary policy and the sale of foreign exchange and the fiscal authority controls spending. Different combinations of ab...

Policy lessons from physicians’ strikes

Drawing upon the literature on physicians' strikes from other OECD countries, the experience with physician strikes in Israel is put into comparative perspective. There are both structural and ideological factors that help to explain why there have been more strikes in Israel relative to other countries. At the same time, the dynamics of the strike and divisions within the medical profession in...