The authors present new data on the regulation of the entry of start-up firms in 85 countries. The data cover the number if procedures, official time, and official costs that a start-up firm must bear before it can operate legally. The official costs of entry are extremely high in most...

Most analyses of property rights and economic development point to the negative influence of insecure property rights on private investment. The authors focus instead on the largely unexamined effects of insecure property rights on government policy choices. They identify one significant...

The author estimates empirically the degree to which the tax systems of both home and host countries affect foreign direct investment (FDI). He presents evidence that tax rules significantly affect capital flow fromFDI. Home country taxes in particular appear to significantly affect the behavior...

Regulation is purportedly enacted to serve specific social purposes. In reality, however, it follows a more complex political economy process, where legitimate social goals are mixed with the objectives of particular interest groups. Whatever its justification and objectives, regulation can have...

Recent international experience has shown that excessively complex administrative procedures, required to establish, and operate a business, discourage inflows of foreign direct investment. The authors present a new database on the administrative costs faced by private investors in 32 developing...

An understanding of corporate governance theory can promote the adoption of appropriate governance tools to limit agency problems in public pension fund management. The absence of a market for corporate control hinders the translation of lessons from the private sector corporate world to public...

Foreign direct investment brings host countries capital, productive facilities, and technology transfers as well as employment, new job skills, and management expertise. It is important to the Russian Federation, where incentives for competition are limited and incentives to becoming efficient...

In Uzbekistan state enterprises are being changed into shareholding companies, and private enterprises account for 45 percent of all registered firms. But business decisions to set prices, output, and investment are often not market-based, nor wholly within the purview of businesses, especially...

How can one account for the puzzling behavior of insider-managers who, in stripping assets from the veryfirms they own, appear to be stealing from one pocket to fill the other? The authors suggest that such asset-stripping and failure to restructure are the consequences of interactions between...

The author studies the allocation-between a central government and a local authority--of responsibility for planning, financing, and operations for the delivery of health services, in the context of an incomplete contracts model. In this model, inputs are required of both the central government...