The aim of this paper is to provide feedback on the question of socioeconomic benefits from rural road development and the impact of transport infrastructure on the poor, particularly the poorest and the bottom 20 percent of the population. This paper relies on impact evaluation methodologies,...

Competitive bidding is an important policy tool to procure goods and services from the market at the lowest possible cost. Under traditional public procurement systems, however, it may be difficult to purchase highly customized objects, such as energy efficiency services. This is because not...

Electricity infrastructure is one of the most important development challenges in Africa. While more resources are clearly needed to invest in new capacities, it is also important to promote energy efficiency and manage the increasing demand for power. This paper evaluates one of the recent...

To utilize public resources efficiently, it is required to take full advantage of competition in public procurement auctions. Joint bidding practices are one of the possible ways of facilitating auction competition. In theory, there are pros and cons. It may enable firms to pool their financial...

Infrastructure has particular challenges in public procurement, because it is highly complex and customized and often requires economic, political and social considerations from a long time horizon. To deliver public infrastructure services to citizens or taxpayers, there are a series of...

In public-private partnership transactions in the water sector, one of the alleged concerns is that there is little market competition at the auction stage. This paper casts light on a tradeoff between the competition effect at the auction level and potential economies of scale in service...

Economic development is affected by infrastructure services in both volume and quality terms. However, the quality of infrastructure is relatively difficult to measure and assess. The current paper, using firm-level data collected by a business environment assessment survey in 26 countries in...

Asymmetric auctions are among the most rapidly growing areas in the auction literature. The potential benefits from improved auction efficiency are expected to be enormous in public procurement auctions related to official development projects. Entrant bidders are considered a key to enhance...

Recent volatility in international energy prices has revealed South Eastern Europe as one of the most vulnerable regions to such external shocks. Under the current global economic downturn, in addition, the region’s energy-intensive industries are faced with the challenge of the weakening...

Although it is commonly believed that aggregate economic growth must be associated with public infrastructure stocks, the possible infrastructure needs and effects are different from industry to industry. The agriculture sector is typical. Various infrastructures would affect agriculture growth...