To guarantee adequate and affordable water and sanitation services for vulnerable households, Chile introduced an individual means-tested water consumption subsidy a decade ago. Although the public authorities determine how the subsidy is applied, the mostly private companies deliver the service...

Analysis of two water subsidy schemes a means tested subsidy in Chile and a geographically targeted subsidy in Colombia shows that the means-tested system is better able to identify poor households than the geographically targeted scheme. However, the overall distributive impact of both schemes...

Analysis of two water subsidy schemes--a means-tested subsidy in Chile and a geographically targeted subsidy in Colombia--shows that the means-tested system is better able to identify poor households than the geographically targeted scheme. However, the overall distributive impact of both...

The commission on growth and development was established in April 2006 as a response to two observations. While the author felt that the benefits of growth were not fully appreciated, the author recognized that the causes of growth were not fully understood. Growth is often overlooked and...

Women's economic empowerment is not a new issue; nevertheless, it continues to challenge governments and development assistance agencies. One of the reasons for this hurdle may well be that gender advocates and growth devotees are speaking different languages when there is a huge space for them...

The vast majority of international migrants from developing countries are of working age. And yet, their integration in the formal local labor market of their host countries continues to be a challenge. This paper reviews the scope of mentoring programs as a more systematic policy instrument to...

The authors assess the effects of private capital and independent regulatory agencies on telecommunications performance by using cross-country panel data from 1990 to 2003. In general, they find that having independent regulatory agencies positively affects affordability and labor productivity,...

This paper shows empirically that "privatization" in the energy, telecommunications, and water sectors, and the introduction of independent regulators in those sectors, have not always had the expected effects on access, affordability, or quality of services. It also shows that corruption leads...

Thirty years ago, in 1974, Chile launched the first large-scale privatization in a developing country. About 15 years later, Argentina provided a new model of global infrastructure management. Since then a variety of public-private partnerships in infrastructure have been adopted throughout the...

In infrastructure, the possibility of a positive relationship between operators' profitability and the degree of concentration is a major political issue in view of the wide diversity of feelings about the potential role of the private sector. This is particularly important in view of (i) the...