The opening up of Eastern Europe raises new questions for the design of environmental policies and for international policy coordination. These questions are even more striking when the uncertainty of the political and economic context is taken into account. The essays provide extremely helpful...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the significance of operational efficiency on MFIs operating costs using both a cross-section and a balanced panel data approach. Using a sample of 750 microfinance institutions operating in Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, the analysis...

The empirical literature over the past decade has often addressed the issue of operational efficiency within microfinance institutions. This paper extends Arnone, Bellavite Pellegrini and Messa (2010), which recognized the importance of strictly financial aspects of MFIs, nearing them to the...

This paper presents an update of the Grilli-Masciandaro-Tabellini (GMT) index of central bank (CB) autonomy, based on CB legislation as of end-2003. The index is applied to a set of OECD and developing countries, and emerging market economies. For a smaller set of countries, the paper presents a...