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...

Good governance is important for countries at all stages of development. Our approach is to concentrate on those aspects of good governance that are most closely related to our surveillance over macroeconomic policies- namely, the transparency of government accounts, the effectiveness of public...

Côte d’Ivoire's government decided on the National Development Plan to give a new impetus to its development policy. This new strategy is based on an ambitious and realistic recovery and development program centered on private and public investment. The institutional monitoring framework for...

This paper discusses key findings of the Ex Post Assessment (EPA) of Longer-Term Program Engagement paper for Kenya. This EPA focuses on 1993–2007, when Kenya was engaged in four successive IMF arrangements. Macroeconomic policy design was broadly appropriate, and implementation was...

Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) are prepared by member countries in broad consultation with stakeholders and development partners, including the staffs of the World Bank and the IMF. Updated every three years with annual progress reports, they describe the country’s...

This Selected Issues paper for Panama reports that the administration is developing a strategy to enhance growth and competitiveness in the Panamanian economy. Corruption is perceived as a widespread phenomenon that has affected both private and public sectors in Panama at various levels of...

This Selected Issues and Statistical Appendix paper on Burkina Faso reviews background information and analytical support for key policy issues. This paper extends the results from the debt sustainability analysis for Burkina Faso and develops two alternative debt ratios that are suitable for...

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...

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...