This research project followed an earlier similar project on Nigeria, applying the same methods. A sample of manufacturers was surveyed to document their responses to infrastructure deficiencies in electricity, water, transport, telecommunications, and waste disposal. They found the...

Governments use a variety of instruments to provide direct support to private enterprises. These include the provision of finance (subsidized and/or directed credit) and business development services (management and marketing advice to small businesses, agricultural extension services, support...

Subnational governments are assuming greater fiscal responsibility in many developing and transition countries. There is concern, however, that fiscal decentralization may weaken fiscal discipline -that local authorities may undertake commitments or incur debt obligations that subsequently...

The authors study the political economy of bank privatization in Argentina. The results of their study strongly support the hypothesis that political incentives affect the likelihood of privatization. They find that: a) provinces whose governors belonged to the fiscally conservative Partido...

It is well known that there is a strong positive correlation between per capita incomes and the quality of governance across countries. the authors propose an empirical strategy that allows separation of this correlation into (1) a strong positive causal effect running from better governance to...

The link between economic growth, and better provision of infrastructure services may be unproven, but it is clear that reforms to make infrastructure services more competitive (where possible), and to provide strong, and independent economic regulation of natural monopolies, do create an...

The most striking fact about the economic geography of the world is the uneven spatial distribution of economic activity, including the coexistence of economic development and underdevelopment. High-income regions are almost entirely concentrated in a few temperate zones, half of the world's GDP...

A successful poverty alleviation strategy has four distinct elements: 1) identifying who the poor are, where they are located, and what they do; 2) analyzing why they are poor; 3) developing policies to improve their standards of living; and 4) supplementing income-improving policies with...

The author reviews the state of thinking on the governance role of state ownership. He argues that a gradual transfer of operational control and financial claims over state assets remains the most desirable goal, but it needs to be paced to avoid regulatory capture, and the capture of the...

The most effective regulators in developing countriesare following remarkably similar approaches. The main common element across"best practice"countries is the use of relatively simple quantitative models of operators'behavior and constraints to measure the impact of regulatory decisions on some...