The author analyzes the cost to the Ministry of Health of providing district health services in Malawi, with an emphasis on the cost of the district hospital. She reaches several conclusions : 1) except for drugs and food, there seems to be little scope for major savings in hospital operation...

This paper presents the result of an evaluation of about 300 power projects financed by the World Bank and IDA between 1965 and 1983. The study shows a declining trend in power sector performance in spite of Bank involvement in the sector. It recommends greater emphasis on : improving productive...

This paper examines the role of private support institutions in determining small and medium enterprise (SME) growth and performance in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It finds that SMEs in SSA get around market failures and lack of formal institutions by creating private governance systems in the...

If a country's planning and budgeting system is dilapidated, an important first step is to rehabilitate basic budgetary and accounting functions and to generate public expenditure data that can provide a starting point for rational planning. This paper makes the point that many of the necessary...

The World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Survey measures entrepreneurial activity around the world. The database includes cross-country, time-series data on the number of total and newly registered businesses for 84 countries. This paper finds significant relationships between entrepreneurial...

The World Bank's Ease of Doing Business reports have been ranking countries since 2006. However, do improvements in rankings generate greater foreign direct investment inflows? This study is the first to test such a proposition empirically with Arellano-Bond dynamic panel estimators using the...

Different views have been put forward to explain why most firms in developing countries operate informally. One view argues that informal-business owners are entrepreneurs who do not register their firm because the regulation process is too complex. Another argues that informal-business owners...

New data from the 2008 World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Survey indicates a very strong and statistically significant relationship between entrepreneurship and a better business environment. Data for 100 countries on the number of total and newly registered corporations over an eight-year period...

In this paper, the author attempts to identify the characteristics of the business climate in India that can help explain the different performance of individual states in terms of investment and growth. The paper develops a new Investment Climate Index aimed at summarizing the aspects of the...

The authors bring new empirical evidence on the impact of the choice of ownership and regulatory regime on firms'productivity and prices paid by consumers. They collect the evidence from a sample of electricity distribution companies in Latin America. The authors rely on estimations of labor and...