Development Blogs.com

Entrepreneurship involves risk. According to a March 6th article in the Economist, “Betting the Fazenda,” Brazilian entrepreneurs are less willing to take risk than their Chinese and Russian counterparts. What could account for this? Well it doesn’t take long to figure out why once you look at the stats from the IFC’s “Doing Business” report. Here’s what the Economist points out:  Starting a business takes 152 days and requires 18 different procedures, according to the IFC’s annual worldwide “Doing Business” study. It takes 2,600 hours for a medium-sized business to keep up with its taxes each year. The same hypothetical business would pay 69% of its second-year profits in tax, if it played by the rules and did not receive special tax breaks. Geez!  Considering...

A new report by Medicins sans Frontieres is among the latest to call on the IMF to drop wage bill ceilings with low-income countries. Alongside three other recommendations, MSF recommends that the IMF and ministries of finance drop wage bill ceilings given their distortionary and negative impact on the expansion of the health care workforce to combat HIV/AIDS. In my work with David Goldsbrough and the Working Group on IMF Programs and Heath Expenditures, I've become convinced that this demand is mostly correct, at least as far as the IMF is concerned. The IMF currently has programs in dozens of low-income countries, mainly through its Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF). The Fund rarely lends significant amounts of money in these arrangements but they function as a signal...

A new report by Medicins sans Frontieres is among the latest to call on the IMF to drop wage bill ceilings with low-income countries. Alongside three other recommendations, MSF recommends that the IMF and ministries of finance drop wage bill ceilings given their distortionary and negative impact on the expansion of the health care workforce to combat HIV/AIDS. In my work with David Goldsbrough and the Working Group on IMF Programs and Heath Expenditures, I've become convinced that this demand is mostly correct, at least as far as the IMF is concerned. The IMF currently has programs in dozens of low-income countries, mainly through its Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF). The Fund rarely lends significant amounts of money in these arrangements but they function as a signal to...

In his speech yesterday at a CGD event, IMF managing director Rodrigo de Rato addressed long-standing criticisms by NGOs and others that budgetary ceilings in IMF-supported programs unduly limit health and other social sector spending in poor countries:The Fund is also strongly committed to making sure that countries have the fiscal space they need to expand social programs, especially in health and education. I want to remove any misconceptions about our views on this...Fund-supported programs have for many years focused on the need to maintain poverty-reducing, especially health and education spending, including in times of fiscal stringency...When additional donor grants are made available for such spending, fiscal targets in IMF-supported programs will be adjusted to ensure such money...