This paper examines product market policies in Croatia by benchmarking them to OECD countries and highlighting how policies that are more conducive to competition would stimulate a more efficient allocation of resources and, in consequence, facilitate convergence to higher income levels. OECD...

Less restrictive product market policies are crucial in promoting convergence to higher levels of GDP per capita. This paper benchmarks product market policies in Romania to those of OECD countries by estimating OECD indicators of Product Market Regulation (PMR). The PMR indicators allow a...

Less restrictive product market policies are crucial in promoting convergence to higher levels of GDP per capita. This paper benchmarks product market policies in Bulgaria to those of OECD countries by estimating OECD indicators of Product Market Regulation (PMR). The PMR indicators allow a...

This paper reviews the published work on the governance of regulatory authorities in order to identify the basic governance standards that apply and some of the factors that affect the implementation of good governance. There are four pillars of good regulatory governance: independence,...

This paper assesses the impact of a change in the price of cashew received by exporters in general -- and by FUNPI, a fund to promote the industrialization of agricultural products, in particular -- on farmgate prices and poverty in Guinea-Bissau. The analysis builds a theoretical model of...

Mobile phone coverage has expanded considerably throughout the developing world, particularly within sub-Saharan Africa. Existing evidence suggests that increased access to information technology has improved agricultural market efficiency for consumer markets and certain commodities, but there...

This paper considers the design and performance of auction mechanisms used to deploy renewable energy in three emerging economies: Brazil, China, and India. The analysis focuses on the countries'experience in various dimensions, including price reductions, bidding dynamics, coordination with...

Power market integration is analyzed in a two-country model with nationally regulated firms and costly public funds. If the generation costs between the two countries are too similar, negative business stealing outweighs efficiency gains so that the subsequent integration welfare decreases in...

This paper estimates the effects of peer benchmarking by institutional investors on asset prices. To identify trades purely due to peer benchmarking as separate from those based on fundamentals or private information, the paper exploits a natural experiment involving a change in a government...

Whereas conventional wisdom argues that markets shut down during crises, with sellers struggling to find buyers, we find that markets continue to operate during financial turmoil, even in narrow and volatile emerging economies. Simple event studies indicate that both trading volume and trading...