North (1984) argues that it is not the cost of transport but the cost of transactions that prevents economies from realizing well-being - and that institutions matter because they affect the costs of transactions. The authors analyze the role of the deliberation council - an institution common...

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...

Countries vary systematically with respect to the incentives of politicians to provide broad public goods, and to reduce poverty. Even in developing countries that are democracies, politicians often have incentives to divert resources to political rents, and to private transfers that benefit a...

This report analyzes the World Bank's experience with project analysis from a sample of 1,105 projects. The authors compare estimated rates of return at appraisal with re-estimated rates of return at the project completion. Their findings confirm a high degree of uncertainty in project analysis....

This study shows that in developing countries with no more than partly favorable policies toward manufactured exports, outside assistance to services that promote and support manufactured exports has had little discernible impact on exports and has rarely been effective in expanding them. The...

This paper presumes the international discourse on the sustainability of development is concerned with: (a) the rights of future generations to the services of natural and produced assets; and (b) whether formal and informal institutions which affect the transfer of assets to future generations...

Until recently, trade in services was mostly ignored by iinternational economists, reflecting a perception that services were nontradable. This has never been true. Transportation and travel, for example, have always been important economic activities. In 1995, services trade climbed to a...

The authors construct an oligopoly model in which a multinational firm has a technology superior to those of local firms in the host country. Workers employed by the multinational acquire knowledge of the superior technology and can spread their knowledge to local firms by switching employers....

The World Bank's most important long-term advantage in promoting development, says the author, may lie in opportunities to address related obstacles simultaneously. It could mount concurrent efforts to address the problems of small and medium-size enterprises in a particular sector, region, or...

Foreign direct investment can take place through the direct entry of foreign firms or the acquisition of existing domestic firms. Mattoo, Olarreaga, and Saggi examine the preferences of a foreign firm and the host country government with respect to these two modes of foreign direct investment in...