Infrastructure has particular challenges in public procurement, because it is highly complex and customized and often requires economic, political and social considerations from a long time horizon. To deliver public infrastructure services to citizens or taxpayers, there are a series of...

The authors constructed a standard computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to explore the economic impact of increased spending on infrastructure in six African countries: Benin, Cameroon, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda. The basic elements of the model are drawn from EXTER, adjusted to...

Governments should increasingly be able to rely on the private sector for help supporting (and financing) the transport sector - especially infrastructure support services for which there is heavy demand - but first they must improve their regulatory tools and sort out the institutional mess...

The authors bring new empirical evidence on the impact of the choice of ownership and regulatory regime on firms'productivity and prices paid by consumers. They collect the evidence from a sample of electricity distribution companies in Latin America. The authors rely on estimations of labor and...

Recent developments in emerging financial markets have dramatically changed the appetite for (and terms of) transport infrastructure projects. As a result of defaults in Asia and Russia and devaluations in Asia, Brazil, and Russia, political and currency and exchange risk premia have increased...

In many countries, well-meant ad hoc tax incentives proliferate over time, creating an opaque corporate tax structure and many unanticipated tax loopholes. Tax authorities in several countries have considered and sometimes introduced minimum corporate taxes. Liability under such a tax is...

The authors review the evidence on the state of infrastructure in the developing world, emphasizing the investment needs and the emerging policy issues. While their assessment is seriously constrained by data gaps, they provide useful insights on the main challenges ahead, emphasizing that, in...

Economists often characterize the regulation of monopolies as a"game"(between the regulator and the service provider) in which the two players do not share the same information. The regulator is assumed to have poorer information than the service provider about the scope of future efficiency...

The authors show that the potential benefit to a host country of forward markets or of foreign exchange guarantees depend on the investor's country of origin and on specific characteristics of investment. They show this in terms of the effects on foreign-exchange risks and on the amount of...

It is commonly argued that when the benefits of an infrastructure service are mostly local and there is little scope for economies of scale - as in urban transit, road maintenance, water supply, and solid waste management - decentralization is the most effective way to deliver service. Those...