The authors demonstrate that sharply different policy choices across democracies can be explained as a consequence of differences in the ability of political competitors to make credible pre-electoral commitments to voters. Politicians can overcome their credibility deficit in two ways. First,...

The authors construct a regulation model in which renegotiation occurs due to the imperfect enforcement of concession contracts. This enables the authors to provide theoretical predictions for the impact on the probability of renegotiation of a concession, regulatory institutions, institutional...

The authors investigate the theoretical effects of lobbying and pressure group activities on both economic efficiency and on equity. Looking at lobbying as a political activity that takes place alongside production, they find that lobbies may generate economic inefficiency as part of the process...

Pressure to move toward privatization has mounted in the face of severe economic crises both in the developed and developing world. To date, the pace of privatization in the developing world has been slow and its impact modest. This report accordingly discusses the issue of privatization in the...

This paper on the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) on the Kyrgyz Republic explains macroeconomic, structural, and social policies in support of growth and poverty reduction, as well as associated external financing needs and major sources of financing. Partnerships developed by the...

As the number of cases in the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement system has increased, there has been a greater effort by the academic community to analyze the data for emerging trends. Holmes Rollo, and Young seek to develop this literature using data up to the end of 2002 to ask...

At the Uruguay Round, developing countries took on unprecedented obligations not only to reduce trade barriers, but to implement significant reforms both of trade procedures, e.g., import licensing procedures, customs valuation and of many areas of regulation that establish the basic business...

The authors examine the effects of local inequality on property and violent crime in South Africa. Their findings are consistent with economic theories relating inequality to property crime, and also with sociological theories that imply that inequality leads to crime in general. Burglary rates...