As governments turn to the private sector to provide services once delivered by the public sector, they must learn new skills. An increasingly common way to provide the new capacities needed is to establish public-private partnership units - as new agencies or as special cells within a...

In recent years the renegotiation and, even more, the cancellation of private infrastructure projects in developing countries have made the headlines in the world's financial press. For a variety of reasons the renegotiation of projects is not an unusual occurrence. But as this Note explains,...

In 1998 the government of Guatemala privatized the two companies responsible for distributing electricity in rural areas. The new owner, Union Fenosa, was obliged to implement an ambitious five-year rural electrification program. The goal: to increase the share of households with an electricity...

The Uruguay Round involved a grand North-South bargain: The North reduced import barriers, particularly in textiles and agriculture. The South adopted new domestic regulations in such areas as services and intellectual property-changes that would lead to increased purchases from the North. In...

One of the recurring themes in the sustainability literature has been the legitimacy of using an economic framework to account for natural resources. This paper examines the potential for substituting between different inputs in the generation of income, where the inputs include natural...

The inequality dataset compiled in the 1990s by the World Bank and extended by the United Nations has been both widely used and strongly criticized. The criticisms raise questions about conclusions drawn from secondary inequality datasets in general. The authors develop techniques to deal with...

A better understanding of the relationship between economic policies and human capital formation through vocational education and training (VET) will help both development strategists and education planners. With this in mind, the paper begins with a social systems model to trace the impact of...

Uzbekistan adopted a cautious, gradual approach to market reform. Kazakhstan followed a more aggressive strategy. But while Kazakhstan may have achieved a better policy environment, its economic performance has not been better than Uzbekistan's. The authors examine the interplay between...

Economists have come to acknowledge that finance matters for development more, and in more ways than had been recognized for a long time. Changes in the financial services industry are providing immense possibilities for economic development. Grais and Kantur present a framework to help...