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East Asia has experienced a dramatic decrease in output growth volatility over the past 20 years. This is good news, as output growth volatility affects poor households because of coping strategies that have long-term, harmful consequences, and the overall economy through its negative impact on economic growth. This paper investigates the factors behind this long decline in volatility, and derives lessons about ways to mitigate renewed upward pressure in face of the financial crisis. The authors show that if, on the one hand, high trade openness has sustained economic growth in the past several decades, on the other hand, it has made countries more vulnerable to external fluctuations. Although less frequent terms of trade shocks and more stable growth rates of trading partners have helped to reduce volatility in the past, the same external factors are now putting renewed pressure on volatility. The way forward seems therefore to be to counterbalance the external upward pressure on volatility by improving domestic factors. Elements under domestic control that can help countries deal with high volatility include more accountable institutions, better regulated financial markets, and more stable fiscal and monetary policies.

Business cycle --- Capita growth --- Crisis volatility --- Economic Conditions and Volatility --- Economic growth --- Economic outlook --- Economic performance --- Emerging Markets --- Financial markets --- Fluctuations --- Growth rate --- Growth rates --- Growth volatility --- High trade openness --- Income --- Low-income countries --- Macroeconomic volatility --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Monetary policies --- Private Sector Development --- Recessions --- Standard deviation --- Trade shocks --- World economy

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The results of new direct price level comparisons across 148 countries in 2005 have led to large revisions of purchasing power parity exchanges rates, particularly for China and India. The recalculation of international and global inequalities, using the new purchasing power parity rates, shows that inequalities are substantially higher than previously thought. Inequality between global citizens is estimated at 70 Gini points rather than 65 as before. The richest decile receives 57 percent of global income rather than 50 percent.

Average income --- Consumption expenditures --- Country dummies --- Country regressions --- Developed economies --- Developing countries --- Economic Theory and Research --- Emerging Markets --- Empirical studies --- Equity and Development --- Gini coefficient --- Growth rate --- Growth rates --- Household surveys --- Income --- Income levels --- Inequality --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Mean incomes --- Policy research --- Poverty headcount --- Poverty Impact Evaluation --- Poverty line --- Poverty Reduction --- Power parity --- Private Sector Development --- Real growth

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The current global crisis may change globalization itself, as both developed and developing countries adjust to global imbalances that contributed to the crisis. Will these changes help or hinder economic recovery and growth in South Asia? This is the focus of this paper. The three models of globalization - trade, capital, and economic management - may not be the same in the future. Changes in globalization could change the composition of trade flows, capital flows, and economic management, which in turn, could accelerate or restrain growth. South Asia is somewhat peculiar and different from other regions in how it has globalized, although there is a lot of diversity within the region. Its trade characteristics are different. India's growth has been spearheaded by exports of modern services and less by goods exports. Modern service trade tends to be more resilient compared with goods trade. Globalization of services is still at an early stage. So, as consumers pull back in the United States, service trade is likely to be less impacted compared to goods trade. Trade also contributes to growth through knowledge spillovers, externalities, and learning. The global crisis has not reduced the stock of global knowledge. Changes in capital flows are also not likely to have a big impact on growth in South Asia, as South Asia's investments are largely driven by domestic savings. Its dependence on foreign capital is low. South Asia has attracted capital flows that are less volatile. Remittances, which are more resilient, have been the dominant form of capital inflows, exceeding foreign direct investment and other inflows.This global downturn calls for counter-cyclical economic management. But South Asia has limited room for fiscal stimulus, given high debt-to-gross domestic product ratios. Nevertheless, reduced commodity prices have created some fiscal space that can be used for growth enabling infrastructure and safety nets. As South Asia undergoes structural transformation, the region is well positioned to bounce back with global economic recovery.

Access to Finance --- Agriculture --- Bank lending --- Banks and Banking Reform --- Bilateral Trade --- Competitive advantages --- Consumers --- Debt --- Debt Markets --- Economic growth --- Economic Outlook --- Economic Theory and Research --- Emerging Markets --- Export Growth --- Exports --- Externalities --- GDP --- Gross domestic product --- Growth rate --- Income --- International Economics & Trade --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Productivity --- Safety nets --- Savings --- Telecommunications --- Value added

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The authors use recent data from the 2006 National Family Health Survey of India to explore the relationship between religion and demographic behavior. They find that fertility and mortality vary not only between religious groups, but also across caste groups. These groups also differ with respect to socio-economic status. The central finding of this paper is that despite their socio-economic disadvantages, Muslims have higher fertility than their Hindu counterparts and also exhibit lower levels of infant mortality (particularly female infant mortality). This effect is robust to the inclusion of controls for non-religious factors such as socio-economic status and area of residence. This result has important policy implications because it suggests that India's problem of "missing women" may be concentrated in particular groups. The authors conclude that religion and caste play a key role in determining the demographic characteristics of India.

Economic status --- Family Health --- Fertility --- Fertility Rate --- Gender --- Gender bias --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Important policy --- Infant mortality --- Law and Development --- Levels of infant --- Mortality --- Number of children --- Policy implications --- Policy Research --- Population growth --- Population growth rate --- Population Policies --- Progress --- Religious groups --- Respect --- Sex --- Son preference

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We are not seeing faster progress against poverty amongst the poorest developing countries. Yet this is implied by widely accepted "stylized facts" about the development process. The paper tries to explain what is missing from those stylized facts. Consistently with models of economic growth incorporating borrowing constraints, the analysis of a new data set for 100 developing countries reveals an adverse effect on consumption growth of high initial poverty incidence at a given initial mean. A high incidence of poverty also entails a lower subsequent rate of progress against poverty at any given growth rate (and poor countries tend to experience less steep increases in poverty during recessions). Thus, for many poor countries, the growth advantage of starting out with a low mean ("conditional convergence") is lost due to their high poverty rates. The size of the middle class - measured by developing-country, not Western, standards - appears to be an important channel linking current poverty to subsequent growth and poverty reduction. However, high current inequality is only a handicap if it entails a high incidence of poverty relative to mean consumption.

Absolute poverty --- Consumption growth --- Country regressions --- Developing countries --- Developing world --- Development research --- Economic growth --- Growth model --- Growth process --- Growth rate --- Growth rates --- High poverty --- Inequality --- Mean income --- Policy research --- Poor countries --- Poverty --- Poverty rate --- Poverty rates --- Poverty Reduction --- Pro-Poor Growth --- Reducing poverty --- Regional Economic Development --- Rural Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Services and Transfers to Poor