This report analyzes the main reasons or interests that have prevented some recent judicial and legal reforms in Honduras and Bolivia from becoming effective. It focuses on the reasons why criminal justice reforms were unable to put an end to the misuse of pre-trial detention. The report also...

"This paper identifies systematic performance differences between younger and older democracies: younger democracies are more corrupt; exhibit less rule of law, lower levels of bureaucratic quality, and lower secondary school enrollments; and spend more on public investment and government...

"This paper investigates how enforcement of labor regulation affects the firm's use of informal employment and its impact on firm performance. Using firm level data on informal employment and firm performance, and administrative data on enforcement of regulation at the city level, the authors...

"Pierre and Scarpetta present evidence on how employers perceive labor regulations and react when these are perceived to constrain the operation of their firm. They draw from harmonized surveys of (up to) 17,000 firms around the world and compare employers' responses with actual labor...

In response to prolonged recession, in April 2010 the Croatian Government adopted an Economic Recovery Program to safeguard macroeconomic stability and support faster recovery of the private sector. A central element of the program is revision of labor regulations to create a more dynamic labor...

This paper analyzes the potential economic impact of changes to the labor laws proposed in 2006. The economic logic behind these reforms is reviewed, and the conditions under which the reforms could be expected to have the maximum impact on employment are isolated. Next, the experiences of...

"This paper examines the impact of trade with Japan, North America, and the European Union on technology diffusion and total factor productivity growth in Korea, Mexico, and Jordan. Measures of foreign research and development are constructed based on industry-specific research and development...

"The empirical literature on environmental performance or compliance has followed two strands: one based on the impact of formal regulation as a means of inducing better environmental performance, and another centered on the role of informal regulation which mainly emphasizes the role of...

"The health systems of Japan and the Asian Tigers--Hong Kong (China), the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan (China)--and the recent reforms to them provide many potentially valuable lessons to East Asia's developing countries. All five systems have managed to keep a check on health...