Performance contracts (PCs)--contracts signed between the government and state enterprise managers--have been used widely in developing countries. China's experience with such contracts was one of the largest experiments with contracting in the public sector, affecting hundreds of thousands of...

Although there are distinct conjectures about the relationship between finance and income inequality, little empirical research compares their explanatory power. We examine the relationship between finance and income inequality for 83 countries between 1960 and 1995. Because financial...

In the past decade, the World Bank has promoted improving business environments as a key strategy for development, which has led to a significant effort in collecting surveys of the investment climate at the firm level across countries. The author examines the lessons that have emerged from the...

This article examines the extent to which agency theory may explain chief executive officer (CEO) compensation in Chinese state-owned enterprises during the 1980s. We find support for the agency theory: CEO pay sensitivity decreases with the variance of performance. Moreover, the performance...

China is now the world's largest destination of foreign direct investment (FDI), despite assessments highlighting its institutional deficiencies. But this FDI inflow corresponds closely to predicted FDI flows into China from a model that predicts FDI inflow based on government quality indicators...

While the literature on consumption insurance is growing fast, little research has been conducted on how rural consumption insurance is affected by democracy. In this paper the authors examine how consumption insurance of Chinese rural residents is affected if the local leader is democratically...

Infrastructure industries-including telecommunications, electricity, water, and gas-underwent massive structural changes in the 1990s. During that decade, hundreds of privatization transactions valued at billions of dollars were completed in these sectors in developing and transition economies....

Using a new data set of the telecommunications sector on privatization (1981-98 for 167 countries) and competition policies (1990-98 for roughly 50 countries), this Paper investigates the political economy determinants of privatization and liberalization in the telecommunications sector....