This paper analyses the effect of fiscal decentralisation on health outcomes in China using a panel data set with nationwide county-level data. We find that counties in more fiscally decentralised provinces have lower infant mortality rates than counties where the provincial government remains...

In this paper, we analyse the potential contribution of the Internet and its commercial application to the development process in poor countries. In historical perspective, the Internet has diffused at a far faster rate than earlier generations of communications technology: from 1990 to early...

This study develops a conceptual framework for analysing the ways in which changes in the economic environment modify factor productivity. It focuses on the technology actually used in production — implemented technology — rather than the generation of technology. Implementation reflects the...

This paper studies the puzzling lack of correlation between income and schooling in macro regressions. It is argued that the root of the puzzle is threefold. First, there is a problem of a proper definition of the way in which years of schooling should enter into a production function. Second,...

Corruption in customs administrations is a major problem in many African countries. Data from the period 1990-96 are used to examine several hypotheses concerning the determinants of customs fraud in Senegal and Mali. Statistical tests using product-by-product data support the widely held view...

The Chinese software industry is small and underdeveloped, compared with its computer and other information technology (IT) hardware industry and compared with India’s software industry. Yet, current status is not necessarily a good guide to future prospects, as China’s recent history amply...

In principle, the sovereign credit rating industry could help mitigate the congestion externalities common to world capital markets that arise from the failure of market participants to internalise the social cost of external borrowings. This would require that modifications in ratings on...

Japan is in the process of developing much closer economic ties with its Asian neighbours, at both the government and private-sector levels. While there is little official support in Japan for the creation of any formal regional integration scheme, there is evidence of Japanese behaviour leading...

Ce document analyse le rôle de la productivité globale des facteurs comme déterminant de la compétitivité des industries manufacturières sénégalaises. Il porte sur un panel de dix groupes d’industries manufacturières et couvre la période 1974-94. Après avoir estimé la fonction de...

The problems associated with structural stagnation, the debt crisis, and policy mismanagement have proved resistant to the procedures of balance-of-payments stabilization and structural adjustment of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. This paper considers the challenges...