It is generally accepted that government health expenditures should disproportionately benefit the poor. And yet in most developing countries the opposite is the case. This paper examines the implications of a central assumption of benefit incidence analysis, namely that the unit cost of a...

The choice of the"right"fiscal relationship between central, provincial, and local governments depends on how a government weighs the benefits of decentralized economic development policies against the costs of having less effective central fiscal management. Three strong forces justify more...

Municipal development funds have the basic purposes of channelling more investments in urban infrastructure through municipal governments and of strengthening the capacity of these institutions in the process. They have attracted the support of the international aid donors because they offer a...

The authors investigate the relationship between the productivity of African manufacturing firms and their access to services inputs. They use data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey for over 1,000 firms in 10 Sub-Saharan African countries to calculate the total factor productivity of firms....

The author offers a framework for an international comparison of charges in mandatory and private pension systems, and in state-run and privately managed systems. Such comparisons make it possible to determine which combinations of quality and cost make the most sense in pension services. He...

The typical post-Bretton Woods era development approach that emphasized central government-led development efforts has changed dramatically, and local governments have clearly emerged as players in development policy. The thinking about what is important to achieve in development objectives is...

The authors analyze the effects of bilateral debt forgiveness on 32 low-income countries in Africa (1984-93). Asking whether it makes a difference for recipient countries to receive pure grants rather that official development assistance (ODA) debt relief, they focus on how one form of aid or...

The authors examine how governments finance and allocate public spending, with an eye to developing strategies for pricing publicly provided health services. They also examine the implications of current policy and the possibility for rationalizing competing government priorities. Because...

The authors examine alternatives for dealing with the initial conditions of housing finance facing countries making the transition to a market economy and moving toward a more efficient and equitable system. They focus on the problem of restructuring the stock of housing loans that exist at the...

Hungary has undertaken a bold and far-ranging reform of its system of subnational finances. This paper outlines the changes introduced in the system of local finance as a result of the 1990 Local Self-Government Act, and the 1990 Act on Local Taxes and provides a preliminary assessment of their...