The city-state of Singapore has achieved rapid economic development in the past by its positioning as an efficient business hub in Asia. To remain competitive in the global knowledge economy, however, Singapore needs to move beyond efficiency by developing a strong"innovative"edge as well. This...

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....

The author explains how recent developments in political economics improve our understanding of macroeconomic policy - especially the timing, design, and likelihood of stabilization's success through monetary and fiscal reform. The author reviews the literature on political business cycles and...

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

The main objective of this study is to explore the realationship between a country's overall economic policy environment and the performance of investment projects in the social sectors. The authors focus on the impact of economy-wide policies including a range of fiscal, monetary, exchange...

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 goal of economic development is to increase growth and eliminate poverty. Recently, the goal has been broadened to include promoting participatory governance. Arguably, participation, for example, in community water committees, produces two desirable outcomes: democratic processes and...

This paper contains abstracts of Policy Research Working Paper series Numbers 2619-2679.

Assistance to support services for exports has rarely boosted manufactured exports from developing countries whose export policies were less than fully satisfactory. This is particularly true of services that involve consultant advice, export promotion, marketing assistance, and provision of...

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...