Globalization has been a persistent phenomenon of the post-war period. The gross volume of cross-border capital flows has grown at an average of 25 percent a year, and trade in goods and services has also increased, albeit not as dramatically, but at least twice as fast as world GDP over the...

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...

The authors examine the liberalization of the basic telecommunications sector in Asian countries with a view to identifying good policy and determining how multilateral negotiations can promote it. They find that most Asian governments, despite the move away from traditional public monopolies,...

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....

The author assesses the importance of the regulatory framework as a determinant of private sector investment in infrastructure. She uses recently compiled data on private and public sector investment in the water, power, telecommunications, railroads, and roads sectors between 1980 and 1998 in...

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...

Recent research suggests that trade costs influence the pattern of specialization and trade, but there is limited empirical research on the determinants of trade costs. The existing literature identifies a range of barriers that separate nations, but then typically focuses only on transport...

One of the most contentious debates today is whether pollution-intensive industries from rich countries relocate to poor countries with weaker environmental standards, turning them into pollution havens. Empirical studies to date show little evidence to support the pollution haven hypothesis,...

Starting in the late 1980s, policy makers and academics began increasingly to call for the development of multilateral discipline on anticompetitive practices. Some believe that falling trade barriers must be complemented by antitrust measures to ensure that foreign competition materializes;...

Drawing on recently completed firm-level surveys in Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Honduras, India, Nicaragua, Pakistan, and Peru, this paper investigates the relationship between investment climate and international integration. These standardized surveys of large, random samples of firms in common...