Apart from size of population and GDP, China and Viet Nam have a good deal in common. Both are economies in transition from socialist central planning to the market. Both were largely agrarian societies on the eve of their reforms and, in both, unleashing the productive forces of agriculture was...

Timor Leste, the first new nation of the twenty-first century, is a young country facing many of the most challenging problems of underdevelopment: illiteracy, malnutrition, low skills base and high unemployment. It also is on the threshold of facing the potential pitfalls of being a relatively...

Efforts to get Sub-Saharan Africa back into the world economy through internationally-backed reforms have largely failed due to lack of institutions, suitable local conditions or ability to negotiate effectively for foreign aid. Powerful interests or dominant communities distorted attempts at...

State-owned enterprise (SOE) restructuring has proceeded more rapidly in Viet Nam than, for example, in China and India. The government tightened the budget constraints facing SOEs virtually simultaneously with price liberalisation. While a large number of mostly small SOEs were liquidated soon...

The environmental impacts of economic activity have become an increasingly urgent concern in both OECD Member countries, as well as in non-Member countries. Research in this area is still in its infancy, and the data required to buttress analytical studies is still sparse. This paper describes...

Four scenarios for the global trading system in the 1990s are outlined and their implications for developing countries considered: (i) further development of a GATT-based trading regime; (ii) development of a world of trading blocs -- where the critical issue is not whether they will emerge (they...

The paper analyses economic and political causes as well as outcomes of the sudden reversal of Indian economic policies in 1991–93, after four decades of autarky and interventionism. It argues that a changing political landscape and the emergence of new interest groups, coupled with a severe...

The report argues that aid volatility is an important source of volatility for the poorest countries. Following a method already applied by the Agence Française de Développement, the report argues that loans to LICs should incorporate a floating grace period, which the country could draw upon...

This Technical Paper analyses the main policy issues raised by regulatory reform in air transport in sub–Saharan Africa. Its basic premise is that improving air infrastructure is of paramount importance for the region as it tries to integrate more thoroughly into the world economy. On the...

This paper deals with the problem of definition and measurement of the efficiency of agricultural production. Using an agronomical simulation model, it makes comparisons of wheat, maize, sunflower and soybean production in different regions of France, Argentina and the United States. The...