The critical need for private sector involvement in the fight against corruption is now an accepted fact, particularly in East Asia, where there is a buoyant private sector and where corruption has often been equated with cronyism. Cutting off corruption's supply side is a vital step in limiting...

This paper proposes a new quantitative implementation of Balassa's idea that export composition and revealed comparative advantage inform the relationship between endowments in domestic factors of production and exports. It proposes that the export composition of countries is close to a...

Central Asia is often associated with the silk route or road, the longest overland trade route connecting China to Europe and one of the oldest in history. Growth opportunities and the future prosperity of the region are highly dependent upon the efficiency of its internal and external...

This paper examines public sector size and performance management in post-revolution Tunisia, drawing on macro-empirical, legal, and qualitative analyses. The paper first shows that public sector employment figures and the wage bill have increased significantly since the 2011 revolution, but...

Long cargo dwell times in ports are a critical issue in Sub-Saharan African countries since they result in slow import processes and are bound to dramatically reduce trade. The main objective of this study is to analyze long dwell times'causes in ports in Sub-Saharan Africa from a shipper's...

Starting with the hypothesis that behaviors are the critical (and often overlooked) factor in public sector performance, this paper explores the notion of how behavioral change (and thus institutional change) might be better motivated in the public sector. The basis for this study is"an...

This paper uses Zambia as a case study to assess empirically whether political interference in a low-governance environment has diminished in the past years as expected after a semi-autonomous agency model was set up ten years ago. The road sector in Zambia has experienced some significant...