Competing in the world economy does not automatically boost a nation's productivity and restructure its economy. Such progress requires mobilizing capital, employment, technology and knowledge. Opportunities beyond the business realm must be fully exploited to the benfit of society as a whole....

Revitalizing the Jamaican Economy: Policies for Sustained Growth aims to improve our understanding of the constraints to social and economic development in Jamaica. It also proposes practical solutions to overcome some of those problems. This book is a collection of studies commissioned by the...

Regional integration initiatives have long been part of the world economic landscape. In Latin America, integration flourished in the early post-war era but then lost momentum until the 1990s, when there was a new wave of initiatives ranging from free trade areas to customs unions. This Report...

'Investor Protection and Corporate Governance' analyzes the impact of corporate governance on firm performance and valuation. Using unique datasets gathered at the firm-level--the first such data in the region--and results from a homogeneous corporate governance questionnaire, the book examines...

The material within these pages shows that Barbados, a Caribbean country with just over a quarter of a million people, embodies many of the classic vulnerabilities of an island with a small open economy, yet aspires to developed-country status, and is already well advanced on the road to...

Critics of privatization argue that poor labor force restructuring is a key concern and that governments should establish better retrenchment programs. Using new data from a random sample of 400 companies in the world, we test competing theories about the wisdom of retrenchment programs and...

This paper presents theory and evidence on the relationship between inequality and institutional quality. We propose a model in which the two dynamically reinforce each other and set out to test this relationship with a broad array of institutional measures. We establish double causality between...

Poorer countries have a much smaller public sector and correspondingly a smaller tax burden than richer countries, yet, their economic performance has not been necessarily better. Using a simple model, this paper suggests that the growth and welfare effects of taxation are mediated through...

This paper uses a large cross-country survey of business firms to assess their influence on government policies. It is found that influence is associated with larger, government-owned firms that have a high degree of ownership concentration. In contrast, foreign ownership matters little. It is...

According to recent research, external factors and political governance considerations are key determinants of capital flows in Latin America. We postulate that corporate governance is a crucial determinant as well. We show that while the region is characterized by relatively low levels of...