Development of the western region is vital to the balanced growth of China. The author studies the impacts of infrastructure investment that may most efficiently alleviate the burden of geographical remoteness of the West. Having constructed the ?adjusted distance? to approximate the transport...

The authors aim at contributing to understand the dispersion of returns from policy reforms using cross-country regressions. The authors compare the"before reform"with"after reform"GDP growth outcome of countries that undertook import-liberalization and fiscal policy reforms. They survey a large...

The literature on regional integration agreements (RIAs) is vast and deals with political, economic, and political economy issues. The literature on the economics of RIAs deals mostly with static effects, and concludes that these effects are, in general, ambiguous. So far there has been no...

Reform of Ghana's macropolicies has helped to create a more favorable business environment and a"level playing field"for the private sector. At this point, instead of further refining its policies, Ghana should begin strengthening the institutions to implement them, and improving the channels of...

The importance of a country's"investment climate"for economic growth has recently received much attention. The authors address the general lack of appropriate data for measuring the investment climate and its effects. The authors use a new survey of 1,500 Chinese enterprises in five cities to...

The methodological problems associated with standard partial equilibrium models may impart a significant bias in their projections of the trade effects of tariff cuts. First, these models fail to account for the price-raising effects of nontariff barriers (NTBs) that shift the supply curve for...

The authors of this paper examine trends in private foreign direct investment in sub - Saharan Africa, assess how this has affected the host economies, and discuss the prospects for increased investment in the 1990s. They examine new or nontraditional forms of investment as well as more...

The authors provide a new approach to the evaluation of pre-shipment inspection (PSI) programs as ways of improving tariff-revenue collection and reducing fraud when customs administrations are corrupt. They build a model highlighting the contribution of surveillance firms to the generation of...

Most interesting results on the welfare effects of regional arrangements are ambiguous at a theoretical level. Many questions only have quantitative answers that are specific to the particular structural features of the economy and the policy considered. So, to determine the impact of...

The authors investigate the relationship between weak growth performance and low investment rates in Africa. The cross-country evidence suggests no direct relationship. The positive and significant coefficient on private investment appears to be driven by Botswana's presence in the sample....