To encourage the private funding and provision of infrastructure services, governments have used specialized financing facilities to offer financial support to investors, often in the form of grants, soft loans, or guarantees. The authors present case studies of infrastructure financing...

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...

In a globalizing world, cities at or near the apex of the international urban hierarchy are among the favored few--New York, London, and Tokyo--that have acquired large economic, cultural, and symbolic roles. Among a handful of regions that aspire to such a role--such as Hong Kong, Miami, and...

The most effective regulators in developing countriesare following remarkably similar approaches. The main common element across"best practice"countries is the use of relatively simple quantitative models of operators'behavior and constraints to measure the impact of regulatory decisions on some...

Subnational debt markets can be a powerful force in a country's development. Through delegated monitoring by financial intermediaries and through debt placed directly with investors, subnational debt markets account for about 5 percent of GDP in Argentina and Brazil. But they remain embryonic in...

Subnational fiscal autonomy-the basis for fiscal federalism in modern federations-is meant to serve two roles. First, local control over revenue collection is meantto provide a check on the capacity of central authorities to tax arbitrarily local capital. Second, retention of taxes raised...

The transition from socialism characteristically reduces existing tax revenues at the same time that it increases the need for government spending. An increasing need for revenue combined with an eroding tax base creates a transition-related fiscal gap and a challenge for tax policy. The...

The author reviews the conceptual basis for fiscal equalization transfers, analyzes the theoretical implications for optimal design of equalization transfers, and suggests quantitative approaches for assessing the fiscal needs of subnational governments and determining their entitlement to...