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This paper assesses the effects of structural reforms on firm-level productivity for 37 developing countries from 2006 to 2014 period. It takes advantage of the IMF Monitoring of Fund Arrangements dataset for reform indexes and the World Bank Enterprise Surveys for firm-level productivity. The paper highlights the following results. Structural reforms such as financial, fiscal, real sector, and trade reforms, significantly improve firm-level productivity. Interestingly, real sector reforms have the most sizeable effects on firm-level productivity. The relationship between structural reforms and firm-level productivity is nonlinear and shaped by some firms’ characteristics such as the financial access, the distortionary environment, and the size of firms. The pace of structural reforms matters since being a “strong reformer” is associated with a clear productivity dividend for firms. Finally, except for financial and trade reforms, all structural reforms under consideration are bilaterally complementary in improving firm-level productivity. These findings are robust to several sensitivity checks.

Corporate Finance --- Macroeconomics --- Public Finance --- Production and Operations Management --- Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis --- Economic Development: Financial Markets --- Saving and Capital Investment --- Corporate Finance and Governance --- Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development --- Development Planning and Policy: Trade Policy --- Factor Movement --- Foreign Exchange Policy --- Institutions and the Macroeconomy --- Macroeconomics: Production --- Human Capital --- Skills --- Occupational Choice --- Labor Productivity --- Fiscal Policy --- Financial Institutions and Services: General --- Structural reforms --- Productivity --- Labor productivity --- Fiscal policy --- Business environment --- Macrostructural analysis --- Production --- Economic sectors --- Industrial productivity --- Business enterprises --- Bangladesh

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What is the extent of currency diversification in the international monetary system? How has it evolved over time? In this paper, we quantify the degree of currency diversification using regression methods of currency co-movements to determine the extent to which national currencies across the world belong to a reserve currency bloc. We then use these estimates to calculate the economic size of each currency bloc. A key contribution of our paper is that we quantify the size of the Chinese renminbi bloc. Our analysis suggests that the international monetary system has transitioned from a bi-polar system - consisting of the U.S. dollar and the euro - to a tri-polar one that includes the renminbi. The dollar bloc is estimated to continue to dominate, having the largest share in global GDP (40 percent), followed by the renminbi (30 percent) and the euro blocs (20 percent). The geographical area of influence for the RMB bloc appears to be most evident among the BRICS’ currencies. The British pound and the Japanese yen blocs appear to play minor roles.

Exports and Imports --- Macroeconomics --- Money and Monetary Policy --- Economic Integration --- Foreign Exchange --- International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions --- Financial Aspects of Economic Integration --- Open Economy Macroeconomics --- Development Planning and Policy: Trade Policy --- Factor Movement --- Foreign Exchange Policy --- Monetary Systems --- Standards --- Regimes --- Government and the Monetary System --- Payment Systems --- Financial Crises --- Monetary economics --- International economics --- Economic & financial crises & disasters --- Monetary unions --- Reserve currencies --- Currencies --- International monetary system --- Global financial crisis of 2008-2009 --- Economic integration --- Money --- Numéraire --- International finance --- Global Financial Crisis, 2008-2009 --- United States