The focus of policy reform in developing countries has moved from getting prices right to getting institutions right, and accordingly countries are increasingly being advised to move towards "best-practice" institutions. This paper argues that appropriate institutions for developing countries...

Expanding access to financial services holds the promise to help reduce poverty and spur economic development. But, as a practical matter, commercial banks have faced challenges expanding access to poor and low-income households in developing economies, and nonprofits have had limited reach. We...

This chapter reviews what economists have learned about the impact of labor market institutions, defined broadly as government regulations and union activity on labor outcomes in developing countries. It finds that:(1)Labor institutions vary greatly among developing countries but less than they...

This chapter develops a unified analytical framework, drawing on and extending the existing literature on the subject, for studying the role of property rights in economic development. It addresses two fundamental and related questions concerning the relationship between property rights and...

International economic integration increases exposure to external risk and intensifies domestic demands for social insurance through government programs. But international economic integration also reduces the ability of governments to respond to such pressure by rendering the tax base...

This paper reviews recent theory and evidence on trade and industrial policy reform in developing countries. First, the theoretical and empirical basis of the rationales for policy reform are discussed. Next, two sources of heterodoxy are identified and evaluated: (a) the East Asian experience...

There exists near-consensus among professional economists on the desirability of achieving macroeconomic stabilization prior to the removal of microeconomic distortions. Yet this advice was completely disregarded in some of the most important cases of reform during the last decade--Bolivia and...