The authors examine the role of governance-measured by level of corruption and quality of bureaucracy-and ask how it affects the relationship between public spending and outcomes. Their main innovation is to see if differences in efficacy of public spending can be explained by quality of...

The authors study the effects of regulation on economic growth and the relative size of the informal sector in a large sample of industrial and developing countries. Along with firm dynamics, informality is an important channel through which regulation affects macroeconomic performance and...

This paper was completed before the events of August 1991. But the analysis of recent modes of privatization in the Soviet Union is still important for understanding the evolving situation. The"present"All-Union regime, was the first regime to implement wide-scale privatization. The process may...

Significant changes in public investment patterns - in both the sectoral uses of funds, and their geographic distribution - emerged after Bolivia devolved substantial resources from central agencies, to municipalities in 1994. By far the most important determinant of these changes are objective...

The authors examine the decisions policy-makers in transitional socialist economies must make: how to define the asset liability structure of state owned enterprises and banks as they are privatized. They conclude that the many loans issued by state-owned enterprises under socialism are impeding...

Roughly 100 public enterprises in developing countries are using contract plans - negotiated performance agreements between the government/owner and the enterprises'managers or directors. Contract plans have not improved the financial performance of public enterprises dramatically. The process...

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...

Minimizing costs is often cited as essential for optimizing service delivery. Roads are the oldest, most important infrastructure services provided by governments. They require construction, rehabilitation, maintenance, and administration. Various institutional arrangements affect the degree to...

Next to the decollectivization of agriculture, the most striking economic transformation in China since 1978 has been the rapid growth of rural nonstate industry. Firms in this sector (referred to as TVPs) are owned by a hierarchy of local government units below the county level: towns,...

The authors try to replace myths about government pay and employment with reliable facts from a survey for about 100 countries in the early 1900s. The study also outlines the general nature of civil service problems in the different regions. Nevertheless, while the facts are useful...