Under financial constraints, exporting may have less to do with productivity and more to do with financial resources. The established relationship between exporting and productivity would differ when examined through the lens of the working capital needs of the firm. I approach the hypothesis...

Governance measurement is a relatively new source of entertainment for economists. The World Bank Institute paved the way in the late 1990`s with the now famous suite “Governance Matters”, I, II, III, IV… The little imagination of KKZ , regarding the choice of the title of their...

In recent years, the segment of the world's poor has moved into the focus of business and academia. This trend was accelerated by stagnation tendencies in the industrialized world together with comparatively high growth rates in developing countries. Under the headline Base of the Pyramid,...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) plays a substantial regulatory role in the international monetary and financial system. The IMF has been assigned a formal regulatory role in a limited number of areas such as obligations covering exchange rate policies. The Fund has a broader informal...

This article provides background on the establishment of the World Bank Inspection Panel and discusses its significance. It argues that the Panel is an important international legal development for three reasons. First, it is the first forum in which private actors can hold an international...

This paper explores the lessons to be learned from the South African debt crisis of the mid-1980s and suggests ways in which it could have been used to promote human rights changes in apartheid South Africa

This paper explores the type of human rights obligations of the World Bank and the IMF. It argues that their human rights obligations can be divided into two sets of issues. First is operational issues, which relate to both the promotion and protection of human rights. Second is institutional...

This paper tests the effect of sovereign debt structure on default likelihood. Sovereign debt structure is identified on the basis of maturity, creditor type and currency composition. The paper uses panel logit model to estimate the likelihood of default. The results provide evidence that...

An estimated 85% of Afghanistan's population lives in rural areas, most of which are resource poor farmers whose livelihoods depend on agriculture and livestock in agro-pastoral or crop-livestock systems. Agriculture – including the processing of agricultural and livestock products -- provide...

Cross-sector development partnerships (CSDPs) are project-based collaborative arrangements between business, government, and civil society organizations in support of international development goals such as sustainability, health education, and economic development. Based on the case of public...