Many private infrastructure projects mix regulation that subjects the private company to considerable risk, a government or regulator that is reluctant to see the company go bankrupt, and high leverage on the part of the company. If all goes well, equityholders make a profit, debtholders are...

This paper asks whether new technological capacity for producing and exporting additional products provides incentives for greater capital accumulation, without being fully reflected in a higher rate of total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Using a highly disaggregated data set of each...

Limited competition has been a serious concern in infrastructure procurement. Importantly, however, there are normally a number of potential bidders initially showing interest in proposed projects. This paper focuses on tackling the question why these initially interested bidders fade out. An...

The authors study transient poverty in a six-year panel dataset for a sample of 5,000 households in post-reform rural China. Half of the mean squared poverty gap is transient, in that it is directly attributable to fluctuations in consumption over time. There is enough transient poverty to...

Using household survey data from Peru, the author estimates differences between male and female participation in the labor market, productivity (measured by wages), and economic returns to schooling. He tries to identify characteristics that enable some women to participate in the labor market,...

While barriers to trade in most goods and some services including capital flows have been reduced considerably over the past two decades, many remain. Such policies harm most the economies imposing them, but the worst of the merchandise barriers (in agriculture and textiles) are particularly...

The U.S. life insurance industry comprises more than 1,200 active companies with an impressive record of innovation. Annual premiums for life insurance and annuity products amount to about 5 percent of GNP and total assets to 26 percent of GNP. Life insurance companies are major participants in...

Official tabulations from household survey data suggest rising income inequality in post-reform rural China, a trend of public concern. But the structural changes in China's rural economy have not been properly reflected in the methods used to process raw survey data. Using micro data from four...

International river and lake basins constitute about 47 percent of the world's continental land area, a proportion that increases to about 60 percent in Africa, Asia, and South America. Because water is a scarce and increasingly valuable resource, disputes about water allocation within these...

One explanation for Africa's failure to develop is the weakness of its public institutions. The authors consider one aspect of that weakness: rent-seeking and corruption at the top of government. Under the conditions of their model, and autocrat who seeks to maximize personal financial return...