In 2010, the World Bank categorized countries in per capita gross domestic product in terms of purchasing power parity (at constant 1990 prices) in three categories: low, middle (lower and upper) and high income. If a country caught at least 28 years in lower middle income level and at least 14 years caught in upper middle-income level, then they are trapped in lower middle and upper middle...

a medium scale structural macroeconometric model is constructed to investigate the effects of energy price liberalization on the main macroeconomic variables. the analysis is conducted under 3 different scenarios of increasing the price of energy sources to the level prevailed in the countries of the persian gulf region. these 3 scenarios are a sudden increase, a gradual increase within a 5 yea...

Despite all theoretically and empirically motivated criticism of GDP as a social welfare and progress indicator, its role in economics, public policy, politics and society continues to be influential. To resolve this paradox, one has to recognize that many economists accept the criticism of the GDP indicator but deny its relevance. This paper evaluates the reasons for denial. This entails five ...

This empirical paper focuses on the relationship between changes in GDP and CO2 emissions as a country’s economy moves through periods of growth and decline. Using a comprehensive panel, I document substantial heterogeneity in the relationship across countries. Specifically, countries can be classified into one of the following three groups. Group D (for decline) includes countries where the em...

While many Asian emerging markets now run current account surpluses, reducing Asia’s overall excess savings is largely about modifying growth patterns and saving–investment balances in China. China accounts for about half of the total GDP in Asia ex-Japan but over two-thirds of the region’s total savings and current account surplus. One feature shared by all Asian economies is the surge in corp...

Using the Reinhart-Rogoff dataset, we find a debt threshold not around 90 per cent but around 30 per cent, above which the median real gross domestic product (GDP) growth falls abruptly. Our work is the first to formally test for threshold effects in the relationship between public debt and median real GDP growth. The null hypothesis of no threshold effect is rejected at the 5 per cent signific...