In 1992, LATAD initiated a regional activity aimed at assessing the relative merits of various initiatives to deal with price instability and price risk management in general. Analytical work in price bands (Quiroz and Valdés) and the joint FAO/World Bank workshop in Santiago in October 1993...

The findings and policy implications presented in this paper are based on The World Bank Comparative Study of Agricultural Pricing Policies in Developing Countries, which examined agricultural pricing interventions in eighteen developing countries during 1960-- 85, as well as on the evolution...

With the strong trade reforms in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many countries in the Latin America and the Caribbean region are facing new policy and institutional challenges. On the policy front there are two major challenges. The first is to maintain open trade regimes in the face of...

The City (or Council) Manager--a career professional who handles budget, personnel, and implementation, leaving political matters to elected officials--has been adopted in more than a score of cities in LAC. City managers are found in more than 2,000 U.S. cities, making it the most widely used...

Historically, government in the Latin America and Caribbean Region has been highly centralized. In the past decade, a few countries have legislated devolution and sharing of important responsibilities to subnational governments, and, currently, most countries are either implementing that...

Many economists advocate the use of tradable water rights as the most efficient system for allocating scarce water resources among alternative economic uses. According to this view, a private market in tradable water rights would maximize the economic value of the resource; would help to reduce...

Genuine participation in the development process on the part of beneficiaries and other affected people is critical to sound project design, effective implementation, efficient management and sustainability. Nowhere is this more evident than in environmental assessment (EA). People's...

Ahead of the Uruguay Round accord of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in December of 1993, numerous developing countries, especially in Latin America, embarked on a process of unilateral trade liberalization. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, bound tariffs were instituted,...

The impact of risk on agriculture and the alternative ways of dealing with it has captured the attention of economists and policy makers for a long time. In recent years, the issue has gained renewed interest. Many countries have started policy reforms aimed at liberalizing domestic markets,...

During the past decade, many countries in Latin America and the Carib-bean that previously were plagued by high inflation, a large debt burden, and low growth have transformed themselves into stable, capital-receiv-ing, and growing economies. They achieved this by implementing high-quality...