Do inward-focused development strategies reduce competition in factor markets and incentives for more efficient skills development? Do outward-focused development strategies improve them? The authors compared vocational education and training systems in six developing countries in the 1980s....

This paper contains abstracts of Policy Research Working Paper series, numbers 2857 - 2882

The authors analyze the determinants of firm productivity in a group of Mexican firms. In particular, they test the contribution of external factors such as trade and knowledge diffusion, the availability of infrastructure, informal knowledge exchange, competitive environment, and business...

This paper examines the issue of estimating recurrent costs associated with capital projects in the investment budget. It is intended to help overcome budget planning problems which give rise to the chronic under-funding of maintenance and operating costs typical in some developing economies....

Recent literature suggests that because investment expenditures are irreversible and can be delayed, they may be highly sensitive to uncertainty. The authors briefly summarize the theory, stressing its empirical implications. Then, using cross-section and time-series data for a set of developing...

Lack of private investment is a serious policy problem in many developing countries, especially in Africa. Despite recent structural reform and stabilization, the investment response to date has been mixed, even among the strongest reformers. The role of poor infrastructure and deficient public...

The authors examine the impact on productivity of technologies imported by a sample of developing, and transition economies in Central and Easter Europe, and the Southern Mediterranean - economies becoming increasingly integrated with the European Union. They depart from earlier studies of...

In World Trade Organization (WTO) accession negotiations, telecommunications is always a sector that receives close scrutiny by the WTO Working Party, and the extent of market access and nondiscriminatory treatment of multinational telecommunications companies in Russia has been a significant...

The authors assess for 28 developing countries over the period 1980-2001 whether the existence of a regulatory law and higher quality regulatory governance are significantly associated with superior electricity outcomes. Their analysis draws on theoretical and empirical work on the impact of...

The issue of trade in services is the subject of increasing interest. Evidence of this is its inclusion in the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations. As a contribution to the analysis of the issue, this paper analyzes the influence of a country's resource endowments on its net trade in financial...