The literature on the theory of the firm is rich in theoretical and practical insights. The key messages in this overview are the following: (a) the modern theory of the firm provides many insights into political organization, for political jurisdictions can be viewed as pseudo-firms that...

Providing a more complete framework for assessing the efficiency of government intervention requires moving away from the idealistic perspective typically found in the normative approach to traditional public economics, contend the authors. Such a move requires viewing the government not as a...

It is commonly argued that when the benefits of an infrastructure service are mostly local and there is little scope for economies of scale - as in urban transit, road maintenance, water supply, and solid waste management - decentralization is the most effective way to deliver service. Those...

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...

Policy recommendations for infrastructure provision usually build on a well-established understanding of best practice for sector governance. Too rarely are they adapted to the country-specific political environment even if this is an area where policy choices are likely to be subject to private...

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,...

Does online voting mobilize citizens who otherwise would not participate? During the annual participatory budgeting vote in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil -- the world's largest -- Internet voters were asked whether they would have participated had there not been an online...

The Russia corporate governance manual has been divided into and is published in six parts: (i) corporate governance introduced; (ii) good board practices; (iii) shareholder rights; (iv) information disclosure and transparency; (v) special focus section; and (vi) annexes model corporate governance...

this book is the result of a World Bank conference on regulatory structure organized to give policymakers an opportunity to reflect on the worldwide trend toward structural change and, in particular, the amalgamation of regulatory agencies. Within this trend, a number of competing models of...

This country assitance evaluation assesses the development effectiveness of World Bank assistance to India during the 1990s. The Bank has been India's largest source of external long-term capital and has financed a sizable share of its public investment. Its lending and nonlending services have...