The author studies the determinants of the diffusion of mobile telecommunications in Africa in a fixed effects model. He uses data from 1987-2000 on 41 African countries that have adopted cellular telecommunications technologies. He finds that competition is the driving force behind the mobile...

The goal of economic development is to increase growth and eliminate poverty. Recently, the goal has been broadened to include promoting participatory governance. Arguably, participation, for example, in community water committees, produces two desirable outcomes: democratic processes and...

Much of the academic debate on the effectiveness of foreign aid is centered on the relationship between aid and growth. Different aid-growth studies find conflicting results: aid promotes growth everywhere; aid has a zero or negative impact on growth everywhere; or the effect of aid on growth...

The authors examine the allocation of foreign aid by 41 donor agencies, bilateral and multilateral. Their policy selectivity index measures the extent to which a donor's assistance is targeted to countries with sound institutions and policies, controlling for per capita income and population....

The paper is intended to provide an orientation to the past and present work of the Social Development network and a contribution to its future strategy. It presents a brief overview of the history of the Social Development network or family; it illustrates both continuity and change in the way...

To address the relationship between concessional assistance, corruption, and other types of rent-seeking activities, the author provides a simple game-theoretic rent-seeking model. Insights with interesting implications emerge from the analysis: 1) An increase in government revenue (from...

The authors of this paper use a new database on foreign aid to examine the relationships among foreign aid, economic policies, and growth of per capita GDP. In panel growth regressions for 56 developing countries and 6 four-year periods (1970-93), they find that the policies that have a great...

This paper contains abstracts of Policy Research Working Paper series Numbers 2300-2362.

The recent evolution of development thinking has highlighted popular involvement in decision making. Yet policy gridlock and stop-and-go implementation have been associated with excessive responsiveness to interest groups. This paper aims to pull together seemingly disparate strands of...

Inly since completion of the Uruguay Round have developing countries in East AsOnly since completion of the Uruguay Round have developing countries in East Asia and the Western Hemisphere shown interest in liberalizing services. Ambitious effortsare now being made to incorporate services in...