From the outset state-owned enterprises (SOE) financial and economic performance generally failed to meet the expectations of their creators and funders. There were African SOEs that performed, at least for a time, adequately and sometimes very well, by the most stringent of standards (e.g.,...

Investment commitments to infrastructure projects with private participation grew in 2005, but the number of infrastructure projects reaching financial closure fell, according to just-released data from the Private Participation in Infrastructure Database

This Note looks at systems some governments have used to transform unsolicited proposals for private infrastructure projects into competitively tendered projects. It focuses on the policies that Chile, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and South Africa have adopted for managing such...

"The author addresses the labor markets in rural and semi-urban Mexico. The empirical analyses show that non-farm income shares increase with overall consumption levels and, also, with time. Rural-dwellers in lower quintiles of the consumption distribution tend to earn a larger share of their...

The 2009 World Development Report (WDR) on economic geography aroused interest among policymakers in Thailand and led to an agreement between the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) and the East Asia Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Unit of the World...

This report focuses on a central element of Ethiopia's challenge: the urban labor market. The headlines, which are detailed in the report, are dramatic, and include the following: open unemployment has been persistently high and average duration is long, though recent trends suggest improved...

This report focuses on a central element of Ethiopia's challenge: the urban labor market. The headlines, which are detailed in the report, are dramatic, and include the following: open unemployment has been persistently high and average duration is long, though recent trends suggest improved...