Many societies have limited corruption through the broad-based mobilization of a diverse range of interests willing and able to defend themselves by making meaningful demands for accountability of, and limits on, official power, and for an end to illicit advantages enjoyed by others....

Turkey's adjustment experience was a tremendous success in terms of structurally reorienting the economy. The share of output for export rose from 5 percent in 1979 to 23 percent in 1989, and real output roughly doubled. The financial markets opened and have developed depth and sophistication....

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 authors combine firm-level data from the World Bank Business Environment Survey (WBES) with data on private and public credit registries to investigate whether the presence of a credit registry in a country is associated with lower financing constraints, as perceived by managers, and with...

This paper reports on the latest update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2007: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism,...

Financial systems in developing countries tend to be"restricted"or"repressed"through burdensome reserve requirements, interest-rate ceilings, foreign-exchange regulations, rules about the composition of bank balance sheets, or heavy taxation of the financial sector. Why are governments drawn to...

The author reviews how three pillars of political economy-collective action, institutions, and political market imperfections-help us answer the question: Why do some countries develop and others do not? Each makes tremendous advances in our understanding of who wins and who loses in government...

In recent decades, a majority of countries have experienced a systemic banking crisis requiring a major-and expensive-overhaul of their banking system. Not only do banking crises hit the budget with outlays that must be absorbed by higher taxes (or spending cuts), but they are costly in terms of...

The major form of microfinance in India is that based on women's Self Help Groups (SHGs), which are small groups of 10-20 members. These groups collect savings from their members and provide loans to them. However, unlike most accumulating savings and credit associations (ASCAs) found in several...

This paper provides an alternative way of testing the theory of legal origins, one based on a firm's perception of how helpful the government is for doing business. The author argues that an approach based on firm perceptions offers a number of advantages over existing studies. Specifically, the...