Aiming to reduce the politicization and direct administration of electricity generation, transmission and distribution, the central planners launched three major episodes of institutional changes in the reform era culminating in the creation of an independent ministry-level agency - the State...

"As the Japanese economy languished in the 1990s, Japanese government officials, business executives, and opinion leaders concluded that their economic model had gone terribly wrong. As government officials and industry leaders scrutinized their options, they selected reforms to modify or...

Conventional wisdom holds that international trade agreements can be used as external pressures and credible commitments to overcome opposition and lock in domestic economic reforms. This belief, however, underestimates the ability of politicians to use international trade agreements to leverage...