We read search theory's unemployment equilibrium condition as an Iso-Unemployment Curve(IUC).The IUC is the locus of job destruction rates and expected unemployment durations rendering the same unemployment level. A country's position along the curve reveals its preferences over the...

ROC and CAP analysis are alternative methods for evaluating a wide range of diagnostic systems, including assessments of credit risk. ROC analysis is widely used in many fields, but in finance CAP analysis is more common. We compare the two methods, using as an illustration the ability of the...

Civil service reform is often essential to bring about governanceimprovements that are needed for sustainable poverty reduction.A workshop hosted by the World Bank and the IMF in September 2001provided a forum to review the effectiveness of Bank-Fund advice and programs on civil service reform,...

This paper uses a simple model to analyze the forces that determine the size of the public sector and the quality of workers employed in that sector. Workers are heterogeneous, and the public sector chooses an employment strategy that maximizes a social welfare function U(s, Y) that depends on...

This paper pursues several objectives. First, it presents a sketch of a positive (or real-world) theory of public sector intervention. Second, it analyzes in some detail the activity of the public sector in nine market economies of developing Asia and relates this activity to the growth of the...

This paper argues that the development of human capital in the public sector should be an important ingredient in any proposed set of “second-generation” reforms for Africa. In the post-colonial era the quality of governance has seriously declined, and the stock of human capital in the...

Increasing public debt vulnerabilities in low-income developing countries (LIDCs) have heightened the need for fuller and more transparent accounting of public sector debt (PSD). The framework for reporting on public sector debt is sound. But there is room for LIDCs to further improve their...

We study the determinants of employment and wages in the public sector, using a new set of panel data for 34 LDCs and 21 OECD countries from 1972–992, by estimating equations suggested by an efficiency wage model. We find that government employment is positively associated with the relaxation...

This paper presents for Executive Board approval proposals for the FY 10-12 medium-term administrative budget, and the FY 10 capital budget in the context of the FY 10-12 capital plan. It also proposes to carry forward up to six percent of the unspent resources from the FY 09 administrative...