In 1989, the Government of Guinea entered into a lease arrangement for private sector operation of water services in the capital city, Conakry, and sixteen other towns. The lease has been broadly successful --in the first five years, it led to a big increase in the population with access to safe...

The water industry differs in two key respects from such other network industries as gas, electricity, and telecommunications. First, it offers fewer opportunities for competition among suppliers, since the network of pipes accounts for a large part of the total cost of water and can be run...

The author proposes three types of anticorruption strategies: those that reduce the benefits that officials control, those that increase the costs of bribery, and those that limit the bargaining power of officials. In essence, fighting corruption involves introducing more competition,...

Smart cards, electronic checks, and electronic money alternatives combined with broadly available communications facilities such as the Internet are rapidly increasing the choices for retail payments. They are also increasing the risks. The author reviews the lessons for risk management from the...

Indonesia has only about 1.3 lines per hundred people, so universal telephone service cannot be practically achieved in the near future. Nevertheless, public access to telephone and other telecommunications services can be dramatically improved through pay phones and telecom shops. The telecom...

In the wake of the Mexican financial crisis, too much attention has been given to what was happening in emerging economies and too little to what was changing in financial markets. What are these changes? First, much of the capital flow to emerging markets is now in the form of bonds and...

Price cap regulation uses a formula, set in advance, to determine the price increases for a firm's services for a period of several years. During this period, the firm may keep all the benefits of its incremental productivity gains. Customers can also benefit because the price cap formula may...

Moldovan firms wanting to export face severe financing constraints. The local banking system has neither the capital base nor the technical capacity to finance their working capital requirements. And export credit agencies either are not willing to provide cover, or, if they are, they require a...

Under concession arrangements, the state delegates to the private sector the right to provide a service, yet retains some control over the sector by incorporating in a concession contract or license the terms and conditions that will govern the infrastructure project or company. This approach is...

The legal structure of the modern corporate form has four fundamental elements--separate identity, limited liability for shareholders, centralized management, and transferability of shares. These, together with the dynamics of governance relationship between the owners, the supervisory board,...