This report is concerned with the analysis of privatization and private sector development for the eastern and southernMediterranean countries partnered with the European Union and collectively known as MED-11. Noting that the analysis applies to the situation prior to the dislocations of the...

After a long period in which state-led development was the dominant economic paradigm, since the 1980s private sector development has been the focus for economic policy makers. It is probably no coincidence that economic growth, stagnant for a few decades in much of the developing world, took...

This paper provides an historical overview of aid flows to North Africa. It assesses the aid allocation process and argues that past aid flows to the region have been heavily influenced by donor political interests. This has reduced the effectiveness of aid which, with the exception of Tunisia,...

The quality of institutions is considerable worse in Central Asia than in other transition countries. Based on a panel of 25 transition countries for the period from 1996 to 2005, this paper shows that oil and aid exert a negative influence on institutional development. At the same time,...

While the regional economic integration encompassing the former Soviet Union (FSU) transpires to be inefficient, there appears to be a stronger interest in regionalism in smaller groups of more homogenous and geographically connected countries of the region, specifically, Central Asia. Using a...

Using 2005 firm level data for 26 ECA countries, this paper estimates performance gaps between male- and female-owned businesses, while controlling for their location by industry and country. We find that female entrepreneurs have significantly smaller scale of operations (as measured by sales...

After more than two decades of agrarian change in Tajikistan, farming structures seem to crystallise. The first signs towards farm individualisation were observed only around 2000, which were the result of significant pressure from outside, when the post-conflict state was highly susceptible to...

This paper studies the institutional reform process in Central Asia from 1995 to 2006. I compare the institutional reform processes of Central Asian countries to those conducted in their neighbouring countries of Central and (South) Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. The paper identifies...

Widely ignoring recommendations from mainstream economics, the some Central Asian countries have achieved remarkable economic growth rates since their transformational recession in the 1990s. While Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan have greatly benefitted from increasing world market...