The author develops a general model for addressing the question of how to compensate tax inspectors in an economy where corruption is pervasive - a model that considers the existence of strategic transmission of information. Most of the literature on corruption assumes that the taxpayer and the...

Under the August 1988"Primavera"Plan and the July 1989"Bunge y Born"Plan stabilization programs, the Argentine authorities sought to anchor the price level through an appreciated real exchange rate, which they sustained through policies that maintained high domestic interest rates. The public...

This paper focuses on an evaluation and benchmarking of the governance of regulatory agencies in the electricity sector in Latin American Countries (LAC). Using a unique database, we develop an index of regulatory governance and rank all the agencies in the LAC countries. The index is an...

The authors examine the relationship between foreign investment and the attributes of emerging market countries and firms in which investment is made. Their findings indicate that countries with higher levels of economic development and floating exchange rate regimes tend to have greater ability...

The author examines the many faces of infrastructure decentralization: the costs and benefits, the government structure (constraint or variable?), the"polycentric"approach, and how to make decentralization work (for whom?). He proposes basic principles and guidelines for policy design, for both...

The authors analyze inequality in future carbon emissions using a group decomposition of the Gini index. Business-as-usual projections to the year 2100 for 135 countries show inequality in per capita emissions declining, but slowly. They also measure the impact on emissions levels and inequality...

In the past few years, a number of central banks have adopted inflation targeting for monetary policy. The author provides an introduction to inflation targeting, with an emphasis on analytical issues, and the recent experience of middle- and high-income developing countries (which have...

The authors of this paper expand on earlier studies of the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) by empirically analyzing various factors - including political risk, business conditions, and macroeconomic variables - that influence direct investment flows to developing countries. They...

The author explores the effects a transition from a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) social security system to a fully funded system may have on income distribution, fiscal policy, and capital accumulation. The author presents a heterogeneous agent model developed to study the transition from a...

The author uses a new database of EU product standards in the textiles, clothing, and footwear sectors to present the first empirical evidence that international standards harmonization is associated with increased partner country export variety. A 10 percentage point increase in the proportion...