Investment commitments to infrastructure projects with private participation grew in 2005, but the number of infrastructure projects reaching financial closure fell, according to just-released data from the Private Participation in Infrastructure Database

This Note looks at systems some governments have used to transform unsolicited proposals for private infrastructure projects into competitively tendered projects. It focuses on the policies that Chile, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and South Africa have adopted for managing such...

"For decades the world's agricultural markets have been highly distorted by national government policies, but very differently for different commodities. Hence a weighted average across countries of nominal rates of assistance or consumer tax equivalents for a product can be misleading as an...

"Despite recent reforms, world agricultural markets remain highly distorted by government policies. Traditional indicators of those price distortions can be poor guides to the policies' economic effects. Recent theoretical literature provides indicators of trade and welfare-reducing effects of...

"This paper uses a computable general equilibrium model to assess the welfare impact of commodity price inflation in Tanzania and possible tax policy responses in the short, medium, and long term. The results suggest that global commodity inflation since 2006 may have had a significantly...

"This paper explores how the elimination of Madagascar's Marketing Board in 1995 affected prices paid to farmers, incentives, and regional indicators of poverty and inequality. After steadily losing market share, Madagascar has been able to regain some of the lost ground since the mid-1990s....

"The author examines, taking into account the urban-rural divides, the changes and welfare implications of income diversification in Zimbabwe following macroeconomic policy changes and droughts of the early 1990s. Data from two comparable national income, consumption and expenditure surveys in...