Public policies for the MDGs: the case of the Dominican Republic

Abstract

The Dominican Republic (DR) has committed itself to work towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. Recent data indicate that the DR has made considerable progress on the MDGs but that an acceleration of efforts is needed for the country to reach all the goals.2 This chapter focuses on two key questions: Will the DR achieve all of the MDGs under current policies and trends? If not, what policy changes are needed to achieve the MDGs and at what cost? The second question incorporates alternative assumptions about the sources (domestic or foreign) of required additional government financing. We address these questions using MAMS (MAquette for MDG Simulations3), a dynamic-recursive computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for country strategy analysis, and a micro-simulation model. Such an economywide approach is needed given that the simulated policy changes have strong effects throughout the economy. Section 1 below provides background on the general economy and MDGs since 1990. Section 2 presents our methods and database, and Section 3 the simulations and an analysis of their results. Section 4 concludes with a summary of our main findings.