The authors review the stylized facts on regulatory reform in telecommunications and its effects on telecommunications development and Internet penetration in Latin America. Relying on data from the International Telecommunication Union, the Information for Development Program (InfoDev), and the...

Public infrastructure has long been faced with difficulty in financing. Available public resources are often limited in many countries. Competitive bidding in public procurement systems is an important instrument to contain the public investment costs. But competition is often limited in the...

In this paper we present a survey of distributional impact analysis of environmental policies with emphasis on taxes envisaged or implemented to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). These policies usually aim at reducing GHG directly or indirectly. However, they can produce important changes...

Public procurement is a dynamic process involving vendors, contractors and procuring agencies. Even before submitting bids, competition among contractors may already have started. Given the nature of public work and expected strategies of rivals, some firms decide to enter the market, but others...

This paper offers a quantitative evaluation of the distribution of the welfare of a water privatization experience in Mali among the key economic agents. The assessment is based on an index number inspired by Bennet (1920). The main results are as follows. First, taxpayers are the main losers as...

Policy recommendations for infrastructure provision usually build on a well-established understanding of best practice for sector governance. Too rarely are they adapted to the country-specific political environment even if this is an area where policy choices are likely to be subject to private...

This paper reviews the theories of corruption in regulated sectors to further understand the impact of corruption and the ways in which it can be reduced. The aim is to draw out the policy implications of the different theoretical approaches and to examine the support that can be garnered for...

This paper offers a quantitative evaluation of the distribution of the welfare of a water privatization experience in Mali among labor, investors,intermediate input providers, users and taxpayers. The assessment is based on an index number inspired by Bennet (1920). We find four main impacts....

This book is intended to help regulators learn about the tools needed to measure efficiency. It is based on lecture notes from courses the World Bank Institute offers in English, French and Spanish throughout the developing world and has benefited from feedback received during those courses. It...

This article evaluates quantitatively the welfare effects and their distribution among key stakeholders of Mali's brief water privatisation experience. To do so, we estimate economic worth generation and its drivers from a new use of indicator duality and production theory. We find that: (i)...