1: Country Economics is Different
Part One: What Do We Tell Policymakers About Growth?
2: Growth Theory from the Prism of Policy
3: In Search of a Growth Policy Package
Part Two: Country Stories
4: Why Poland Beat the Odds
5: Kenya's Achilles' Heel
6: India's Unanticipated Growth Take-off
7: Russia Rewrites the Book
Part Three: Policy Debates and Lessons
8: Emerging market Crises of the Last Decade: A Watershed
9: Self-Insurance and Self-Financed Growth
10: Lessons for Low-Income Countries
Annexes
1: Key Features of Neoclassical Growth
2: Assessing Government Debt Sustainability
3: The Russian and Argentine Debt Swaps
4: Three Generations of Crisis Models
5: The Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism (SDRM)
6: IMF's Flexible Credit Line

This book shows how to think about economic growth and sovereign debt in live country situations. The country stories are practical applications of real-time analysis involving significant economic events of the past two decades (e.g. Poland's early transition, India's unexpected growth takeoff in 2003, and the Russian crisis of 1998). Presents growth policy lessons from two significant economic episodes: the transition to a market economy in Central and Eastern Europe; and the rash of emerging market economic crises during 1997-2001. Period covered is 1990-2008
Country stories inspired by some of the major economic events of the last 25 years. These include Poland's historic economic transition, India's unexpected growth takeoff in 2003 and the Russian crisis of 1998, which threatened to bring down the US financial system
Takes a hard look at Kenya's seeming inability to foster social and political stability and more generally offers lessons for low-income countries aspiring to emerging market status
Distils growth policy lessons from the on-the-job experience of an economist in a major development institution, the World Bank.
Includes a compendium of useful concepts and analytical results on growth and debt sustainability for the 'country economist'

Written by a former World Bank economist, How Does My Country Grow? distils growth policy lessons from the author's first-hand experience in Poland, Kenya, India, and Russia, and his contributions to the economic policy debates that followed the emerging market crises of 1997 to 2001, extending up to the global financial crisis of 2008-09.

Based on living and working in the field, the author argues that country economic analysis is in effect a separate, integrative branch of economics that draws upon but is distinct from academic economics. The country stories recounted, reinforced by the emerging market experience since the 1980s, point to a canonical growth policy package built around three interconnected elements: the intertemporal budget constraint of the government; the micropolicy trio of hard budgets, competition and competitive real exchange rates; and managing volatility from external, but especially domestic, sources. This package is underpinned by good governance, which finds its most immediate expression in the management of the public finances. While the discussion is tilted towards developing countries, the insights have considerable relevance for advanced economies, many of which today are in the throes of their own growth-cum-sovereign debt crises.