Using panel data from 50 countries and 35 urban areas (covering a wide range of country incomes), the authors summarize trends in motorization and the provision of roads, and they examine the ratio of motor vehicles to roads in a production function framework at both national andurban levels....

Budgets for extension services have been reduced in many countries. One response to these reductions in public services in some countries has been to privatize extension services - with extension services provided for a fee, by either public agencies or private companies. Under the new approach,...

The authors explore the relationship between economic growth and environmental quality by analyzing patterns of environmental transformation for countries at different income levels. They look at how eight indicators of environmental quality evolve in response to economic growth and policies...

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...

There has been much debate recently about the role of international development institutions, such as the World Bank in middle-income countries. Some observers have suggested that middle-income countries have reached a stage in their economic development that calls into question the rationale...

Economists often argue that the level and structure of a country's trade barriers and the quality of its governance policies (for example, regulating foreign investment or limiting commercial activity with red tape) have a major influence on its economic growth and performance. One problem...

This paper contains abstracts of Policy Research Working Paper series, numbers 2934-3008.

The causal link between finance and growth is one of the most striking empirical macroeconomic relationships uncovered in the past decade. As this branch of the literature matures, the focus shifts from growth to other aspects of economic prosperity, and from financial depth to multidimensional...

The authors rely on a series of growth accounting exercises to determine whether the growth rate of total factor productivity (TFP) or the unexplained portion of GDP growth (after controlling for the accumulation of capital per worker) in 18 Latin American and Caribbean economies has benefited...

World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World (report no. 17300) argued that institutions-the rules of the game that govern production and exchange-shape a country's prospects for sustained market-led growth. The author provides an institutional framework for service delivery, an...