The authors develop and implement a method for measuring the frequency of changes in power among distinct leaders and ideologically distinct parties that is comparable across political systems. The authors find that more frequent alternation in power is associated with the emergence of better...

Macroeconomic consistency is the requirement that budget constraints be observed for all participants in the economy. This paper presents the elements of a macroeconomic accounting framework in current prices. The framework is based on five accounts, corresponding to the following macro...

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is the flagship of U.S. commercial and development policy with Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper looks at the impact of the trade preferences that are the central element of AGOA on African countries'exports to the U.S. and puts them in the perspective...

Ghana's cocoa production has declined in the past 25 years from half the world market share to about one tenth of the market. This has been partly due to policies that overvalued the domestic currency and heavily taxed cocoa exports. This study addresses the dilemma Ghana's government faces: how...

Case studies and anecdotal evidence have suggested that uncertainty about policies, laws, and regulations has hampered development of the private sector in many developing countries. The authors present results from a new cross-country survey that provides comparable data on local...

The relationship between the intensity of competition in an economy and its long-run growth is an open question in economics. Theoretically, there is no clear-cut answer. Empirical evidence exists, however, that in some sectors more competition leads to more innovation, and accelerates...

In defiance of its unimpressive track in structural reforms and relatively low foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, Romanian exports have experienced surprisingly strong performance in both European Union (EU) and non-EU markets since 2000 after a four-year period of flat growth. While the...

The authors consider a multi-community city where community quality is linked to residents'civic efforts, such as being proactive in preventing crime and ensuring the quality of publicly provided goods. Homeownership increases incentives for such efforts, but credit market imperfections force...

Proposals aimed at improving the welfare of the poor often include indicator targeting, in which non-income characteristics (such as race, gender, or land ownership) that are correlated with income are used to target limited funds to groups likely to include a cincentration of the poor. Previous...

Many countries spend significant resources on investment promotion agencies in the hope of attracting inflows of foreign direct investment. Despite the importance of this question for public policy choices, little is known about the effectiveness of investment promotion efforts. This study uses...