Development economists are increasingly concerned about the correct approach to economic analysis of projects. By looking for a compromise between theory (which identifies ideals) and practice (which deals within the bounds of time and resource constraints), Lovei focuses on potential guidelines...

The authors surveyed 41 firms in and around Moscow in the last two weeks of November 1992 to get an empirical handle on how firms are responding to the changing economic environment. They found the following conclusions. There were large negative (supply and demand) shocks to output for a...

Much attention has been paid to the issue of possible nonlinearities in the relationship between log wages and schooling in the literature on both the United States and developing countries. The author uses data from a recent household survey for the Philippines, the 1998 Annual Poverty...

Improving agricultural technology equitably in Africa has been difficult in the past because of the vast differences, as well as weak institutions and infrastructure in its many regions. However, the prospects for equitable growth are good for several reasons. The distribution of land has not...

Political change marked the difference between the approaches of the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (FSU). The Baltics and most Eastern European countries wanted to break away from communism and the FSU domination--so their transition was characterized first by political...

Many recent papers have pointed to ambiguous trade effects of developing regional trade agreements (RTAs), calling for a reassessment of their economic merits. The author focuses on seven such agreements currently in force in Sub-Saharan Africa (ECOWAS and SADC), Asia (AFTA and SAPTA) and Latin...

The Brady Plan is a pragmatic approach to debt restructuring that combines the relatively recent feature of debt and debt service reduction and the support of official creditors. The underlying premise of those adopting the Brady Plan is that the existing stock of debt can never be fully...

The authors concluded that during the past two decades, the number of domestic consulting firms in developing countries has increased phenomenally. However, the quality of their performance has not kept pace with the growth in numbers. The policies and practices of government, internal...

This paper examines the ways in which lower-income households obtain basic financial services in urban communities in Mexico and the United States. And it discusses the efforts that private sector and government organizations are making to lower the cost or improve the quality of those services....

The authors discuss how regional investment agreements may affect the inward and outward flows of foreign direct investments in the integrating region. After describing the multidimensional character of the issue, they provide a conceptual framework for analysis as well as three case studies...