This paper dealing with financing development addresses how public infrastructure can be paid for and managed in an environment where public resources are limited but the investment needs for these services are great. This is a characteristic that succinctly describes many of the emerging...

This paper examines the link between the issue of competitiveness and innovation and their role in fostering higher living standards. The analysis is carried out at the level of both the firm and the country and then outlines some important policy implications. It appears that the innovative...

Creating more innovative and dynamic economies is one of the fundamental challenges facing both advanced and emerging market economies. An important ingredient of this involves the creation of entrepreneurial firms which can quickly translate creative ideas and scientific discoveries into viable...

This essay discusses the challenges in financing economic development in the eastern European and CIS economies. The advantages and pitfalls of extensively relying external capital are explored.

Although there is a vast theoretical literature on the existence of a tradeoff between equity and efficiency, empirical investigations often fail to find evidence for this proposition. Furthermore there are hints that some social models in Europe can cope better with this trade-off and are...

To assess the impact of tax-bene?t policy changes on income distribution over time, we suggest a methodology based on counterfactual simulations. We start by decomposing changes in inequal- ity/poverty indices into three contributions: reforms of the tax-bene?t structure (rules, rates, etc.),...