The authorexamines a range of cross-sectional variation in performance and policies for evidence on what distinguishes successes from failures. At about 6 percent, the growth rate of the Four Tigers - Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan (China) - are among the largest...

In the late 1980s many developing countries experienced something of a pardigm shift: governments began to pursue more market-oriented domestic policies. There was an increasing perception that liberalizing access to service markets was a potentially low-cost, effective method for improving the...

Soviet growth for 1960-89 was the worst in the world, after controlling for investment and human capital. And relative performance worsens over time. The authors explain the declining Soviet growth rate from 1950 to 1987 by the declining marginal product of capital. The rate of total factor...

Private services could contribute greatly to economic growth in Russia and the other former Soviet states. The authors use econometric analysis to identify the gap between expected and actual levels of service activities in these countries and simulate the effect on GDP and employment of closing...

New data from the 2008 World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Survey indicates a very strong and statistically significant relationship between entrepreneurship and a better business environment. Data for 100 countries on the number of total and newly registered corporations over an eight-year period...

This paper addresses two vital concerns in the debate on adaptation to climate change. First, how can countries prepare to manage the impact of climate-change induced natural disasters? Second, how can countries ensure that they have the governmental institutions required to manage the...

This paper reports on the 2009 update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2008: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism,...

This paper presents new indicators for 185 economies measuring the accessibility of business regulatory information. The paper shows that the new data can serve as meaningful proxies for the overall transparency of governments and the new data have explanatory power for the quality of business...

In Localizing Development, Mansuri and Rao survey theory and evidence for development strategies based on local community empowerment. This note extends their theoretical argument by focusing on local government as a vital source of new leadership. Local leaders who provide better public service...

This paper addresses topics on which an agreement is necessary to arrive at consensus guidelines or principles of regulation and supervision of cooperative financial institutions (CFIs) in developing countries. Specifically we identify those aspects related to CFI industry structure, governance,...