Egypt's policy on higher education, the author argues, must take account of the realities of declining government budgets and employment and increasing reliance on the private sector, which must become more competitive internationally. Education in Egypt must increase Egyptians'ability to cope...

Can a supply-driven network of under-skilled rural health promoters make a difference in rural health care? There are few, if any, signs that the current rural health strategy in El Salvador is working, whether the health promoters are government employees or non-governmental organization (NGO)...

The authors investigate the microfinance regulatory regimes in Benin, Ghana, and Tanzania, with a view to identifying key issues and lessons on how the overall regulatory framework affects integration of microfinance institutions into the financial system. The authors find that recognizing...

General principles can guide the design of the overall contours of a tax reform package to a considerable extent. This paper reports on the use of three tax policy models to analyze issues in the course of undertaking economic work with the regional departments in the World Bank's Operational...

The authors explore the relationship between fiscal rules and capital budgeting. The current budgetary approach to limit deficits to a fixed portion of GDP or to balance budgets could undermine incentives to invest in public capital with long-run returns since politicians concerned about...

Quantitative restrictions (QRs) are the most common form of protection in many developing countries. Often this type of protection emerges during balance of payments crises but, once in place, is not removed. Students of developing countries'foreign exchange regimes have long noted that QRs have...

The restructuring of Mexico's economy has had surprisingly little effect on Mexican unemployment, which is low even in the worst years. The authors ask: Is the official definition of unemployment adequate? Is unemployment properly measured? And who bears its burden? Is the welfare cost of...

The authors evaluate whether, in the short run, a devaluation could be contractionary in developing countries that export primary commodities. To do so, they use a model capturing the principal features of those economies. The two most important channels for transmitting the change in parity are...

How can policies improve the welfare of people in economically lagging regions of countries? Should policies help jobs follow people? Or should they enable people to follow jobs? In most countries, market forces have encouraged the geographic concentration of people and economic activities -...

This paper is a policy review of the role of investment climate in post-conflict situations. It summarizes the broad range of ways in which conflict negatively affects the investment climate, from macroeconomic instability to a degraded regulatory framework. It stresses that attention needs to...