Budgets for extension services have been reduced in many countries. One response to these reductions in public services in some countries has been to privatize extension services - with extension services provided for a fee, by either public agencies or private companies. Under the new approach,...

Case studies and anecdotal evidence have suggested that uncertainty about policies, laws, and regulations has hampered development of the private sector in many developing countries. The authors present results from a new cross-country survey that provides comparable data on local...

The authors try to replace myths about government pay and employment with reliable facts from a survey for about 100 countries in the early 1900s. The study also outlines the general nature of civil service problems in the different regions. Nevertheless, while the facts are useful...

The experience of countries in transition from a planned to a market-oriented economy has varied greatly. The clearest differences are between the East Asian countries, China and Vietnam, and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the former Soviet Union (FSU). China and Vietnam...

Public enterprises in the formerly socialist countries have provided many social services to employees and the public, services that divert them from their core activities, raise their costs, and keep them from being competitive. How to deal with these social assets is a major problem in...

The purpose of this article is to offer a methodical approach to deciding when, where, and how to invest in entrepreneurship as a crosscutting economic development strategy. To accomplish this, the authors present and operationalize the concept of a pipeline of entrepreneurs and enterprises in...

Throughout the world, the rail industry historically has been one of the most extensively regulated of all sectors. Price, entry, exit, financial structure, accounting methods, vertical relations, and operating rules have all been subject to some form of government control. The public utility...

In this paper the findings of a survey conducted in June 2001 in Armenia are summarised. The aim was to gain insight into the nature of the rural non-farm economy (RNFE) in the country. For that purpose, 21 rural communities in 3 regions (called marzes in Armenian) were non-randomly selected....

The aim of this paper is to summarise the results of a non-farm micro- enterprise survey in rural and peri-urban Romania and to examine their impact on the development of sustainable rural livelihoods. As these firms operate in fixed locations and are therefore more easily located and observed,...

Public enterprise reform is an important part of policy strategies to accelerate economic growth in many countries. The authors identify two distinct but complementary approaches to public enterprise reform : the private sector development approach and the corporatization approach. The private...