This Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions (EFI) note reviews international experiences and lessons in promoting local government mergers and municipal associations. It seeks to inform efforts to advance institutional reforms in Croatia and address the problem of low local government...

"The authors jointly analyze the static, selection, and dynamic effects of domestic, foreign, and state ownership on bank performance. They argue that it is important to include indicators of all the relevant governance effects in the same model. "Nonrobustness" checks (which purposely exclude...

This report examines the status of reading acquisition in Timor-Leste's primary schools. It is written for education stakeholders and policy makers in Timor-Leste, including government officials, politicians, educators, parents, Timor-Leste's donor partners and Non Governmental Organizations...

Studies from 2016 on demonstrate that the impact of cash transfers varies based on duration, depending on whether they are distributed over a short (24 months or less) or long (more than 24 months) period. Cash transfers distributed over a long period provide predictability that is associated...

"Zervos documents the precise costs of debt and equity issuance, both domestically and internationally, for firms in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Costs include investment banking and legal fees, regulatory and exchange listing costs, rating agency fees, and expenditures for marketing and...

"Da Silva, Estache, and Jarvela describe the evolution of the financing structure of regulated privatized utilities and transport companies. To do so, they rely on a sample of 121 utilities distributed over 16 countries, and 23 transport infrastructure operators and 23 transport services...