Several transition economies have undertaken fiscal decentralization reforms over the past two decades along with liberalization, privatization, and stabilization reforms. Theory predicts that decentralization may aggravate fiscal imbalances, unless the right incentives are in place to promote...

This paper investigates the emerging global landscape for public-private co-investments in infrastructure. The creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and other so-called 'infrastructure investment platforms' are an attempt to tap into the pool of both public and private long-term...

Strong governance frameworks for public enterprises have long been an anchor of stability and efficiency underpinning their financial operations and performance. Cross-country experiences with the adoption of robust legal, regulatory and institutional arrangements-in line with international best...

Ukraine's economic performance has been anemic since the early 1990s. A major impediment to productivity growth has been low investment, held back by lack of strong and independent institutions. This paper aims to assess the major areas of institutional weakness in Ukraine and quantify the...

Many Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, like Benin, have scaled up public investment during the last decade. Such a strategy contributed to the improvement of infrastructure, but also to a build-up of debt vulnerabilities. Looking forward, the planned fiscal consolidation will result in some...

This paper examines the extent to which firms in selected MENA countries reported being constrained by the business environment around the time of the Arab Spring and the extent to which these constraints affected their employment performance. The results suggest that small firms in MENA faced...

Since an enterprise, which is to be privatized, has to be restructured in uncertainty, and the restructuring investments are sunk when the final decision on the sale price is taken, there is an imminent danger that restructuring is not efficient, and there is underinvestment. We consider,...

This paper presents a general equilibrium model of interenterprise arrears, characterized by n-stage production technology with random productivity shocks. The model shows that large interenterprise arrears in transition economies may reflect substantial business risks in those countries and...

This paper deals with the privatization, restructuring, and liquidation of East German industrial firms. A partnership model is suggested for privatization where the Government’s property trust (Treuhandanstait (THA)) is made a silent partner of the private investors. The application of a...

One objective of government investment is to develop public infrastructure which may reduce private sector costs. In a developing economy, the scope for payoffs to investments of this sort may be particularly large. A major concern related to the recent fiscal adjustment in Mexico is that it has...