Even though it is widely recognized that giving farmers more secure land rights may increase agricultural investment, scholars contend that, in the case of China, such a policy might undermine the function of land as a social safety net and, as a consequence, not be sustainable or command broad...

The market prices of developing countries'debts are imperfect indicators of the countries'payment capacity for three reasons: the concave shape of the debt's payoff structure, the presence of third-party guarantees, and the differences in the terms of various debt claims. Claessens and Pennacchi...

The world is entering a period of intense competition for limited supplies of water for alternative uses - in agriculture, in urban and industrial supplies, for recreation, by wildlife, for human consumption, and to maintain environmental quality. Manifestations of this competition and our...

The objective of this study is to analyze transportation costs incurred by Caribbean countries on their major export products to determine whether there is evidence of freight rate discrimination against these countries, or whether their transport costs are significantly different from those of...

Closed-end national index funds (NIFs of country funds) invest primarily in the stocks of the originating countries, such as Brazil, India, and the Republic of Korea. They are typically traded in the organized exchanges of industrial countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom....

Developing countries, which received about $35 billion in net settlement payments from the United States telecom carriers between 1985 and 1998, were upset by the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) decision to slash rates, because lower rates mean lower payments. They claim that the...

In recent years, tetanus and measles are estimated to account for more than 2.5 million childhood deaths annually; measles alone may account for more than 2 million such deaths. The author reviews empirical evidence on the most effective and feasible strategies for measles and tetanus...

The authors explore the effects on the terms of trade of regional economic integration. They show why it is an appropriate measure of the welfare effects of such integration, comparing it with the many ex post studies that base their conclusions on changes in the import shares of member and...

The author identifies fundamental economic changes in the last 20 years that have influenced the emergence of a new paradigm on economic reform. The new orthodoxy on economic reform emphasizes smaller government, trade liberalization, business deregulation and privatization, macroeconomic...

Despite the existence of minimum wage legislation in most Latin American countries, there is little empirical evidence demonstrating its impact on the distribution of wages. In this study the authors analyze cross-country data for 19 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries to gain an...