Organizations → World Bank
- Managing fiscal risk in Bulgaria
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January 2, 2008 16:35
The authors develop a framework to assess and manage fiscal risk in Bulgaria. Bulgaria's Currency Board Arrangement has effectively imposed fiscal discipline, but leaves only limited room to accommodate potential fiscal shocks.
- Liquidity constraints and investment in transition economies - the case of Bulgaria
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January 2, 2008 16:34
The authors use firm level data on Bulgaria to investigate the impact of liquidity constraints on firms' investment performance. Internal funds are a important determinant of investment in most industrial economies.
- The vicious circles of control - regional governments and insiders in privatized Russian enterprises
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January 2, 2008 16:33
How can one account for the puzzling behavior of insider-managers who, in stripping assets from the very firms they own, appear to be stealing from one pocket to fill the other? The authors suggest that such asset-stripping and failure to restructure are the consequences of interactions between insiders (manager-owners) and regional governments in a particular property rights regime.
- Fiscal deficits, monetary reform, and inflation stabilization in Romania
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January 2, 2008 15:59
The authors develop a simple framework for debt, the deficit, and inflation to study the interactions between fiscal and monetary policy in Romania's economy.
- Dividing the spoils - pensions, privatization, and reform in Russia's transition
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January 2, 2008 15:58
The authors present a political economy model in which policy is the outcome of an interaction between three actors: government (G), managers and workers (W), and transfer recipients (P). The government's objective is to stay in power, for which it needs the support of either P or W.
- Social transfers and social assistance - an empirical analysis using Latvian household survey data
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January 2, 2008 15:57
The author assesses the performance of Latvia's system of social transfers, in three ways: First, he analyzes the incidence (who receives transfers) of pensions, family allowances, unemployment benefits, and social assistance. Per capita analysis shows pensions tending to be pro-rich, and families allowances pro-poor (a finding typical in poverty analyses)…
- Give growth and macroeconomic stability in Russia a chance - harden budgets by eliminating nonpayments
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January 2, 2008 15:56
The authors analyze the links between Russia's disappointing growth performance in the second half of the 1990s, its costly and unsuccessful stabilization, the macroeconomic meltdown of 1998, and the spectacular rise of non-payments.
- Reducing structural dominance and entry barriers in Russian industry
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January 2, 2008 15:54
Using survey and other data, the author suggests that much of Russian industry is immune from robust competition because of heavy vertical integration, geographic segmentation, and the concentration of buyers and sellers, in selected markets. Moreover, regulatory constraints protect incumbent firms from competition with new entrants, both domestic and foreign.
- Competition, Corporate Governance, and regulation in Central Asia - Uzbekistan's structural reform challenges
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January 2, 2008 15:52
This paper is based on fieldwork in Uzbekistan and outlines recommendations for developing a structural reform program, which will improve Uzbekistan's competitive business environment. The paper identifies six main policy challenges.
- Disintegration and trade flows : evidence from the Former Soviet Union
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January 2, 2008 15:51
The authors study the effects of trade barriers and the persistence of past linkages on trade flows in the former Soviet Union. Estimating a gravity equation on trade among and between nine Russian regions and 14 former Soviet republics, they find that Russian regions traded 60 percent more with each other than with republics in the reform period (1994-96).
- What factors appear to drive private capital flows to developing countries? and how does official lending respond?
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January 2, 2008 15:49
The authors study what drives private capital flows to developing countries, as well as the apparent response of official lending for the years 1978-97.
- The savings collapse during the transition in Eastern Europe
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January 2, 2008 15:48
The authors assess the presence and extent of involuntary savings by comparing the predicted savings rates of market economies with those of the pre-transition economies.
- Urban and regional dynamics in Poland
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January 2, 2008 15:47
In this exploration of urban and regional dynamics in Poland after the transition, the authors find that the degree of urbanization, and primacy remains low in Poland. The largest cities are not growing at the rate that would be expected if post-transition adjustments were operating freely.
- Reforming tax expenditure programs in Poland
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January 2, 2008 15:45
The authors contend that strengthening the administration of Poland's tax expenditure programs is the first step toward making them effective and equitable, limiting their costs, and preventing the tax base from shrinking. They discuss options for increasing the scrutiny of the tax expenditure programs, defining their opportunity costs and effect on the tax system. Currently these programs enjoy a funding advantage over direct spending programs because they are not subject to systematic review.
- Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan - a tale of two transition paths
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January 2, 2008 15:42
Uzbekistan adopted a cautious, gradual approach to market reform. Kazakhstan followed a more aggressive strategy. But while Kazakhstan may have achieved a better policy environment, its economic performance has not been better than Uzbekistan's. The authors examine several competing, and complementary hypotheses about why the paths the two Central Asian countries took, may have led to different economic outcomes.
- Industrial growth and the quality of institutions : what do (transition) economies have to gain from the Rule of Law?
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January 2, 2008 15:40
The authors empirically test the link between industrial growth and indicators of institutional quality. They find significant evidence that institutional quality affects inindustrial growth in 27 Asian and Latin American countries. Their results suggest that the development of the legal and regulatory framework works its way to industrial growth through both investment and total factor productivity.
- How tax policy and incentives affect foreign direct investment - a review
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January 2, 2008 15:37
The authors review the literature on tax policy, and foreign direct investment, and explore possibilities for research. They observe that tax incentives neither make up for serious deficiencies in a country's investment environment, nor generate the desired externalities.
- Disorganization or self-organization : the emergence of business associations in a transition economy
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January 2, 2008 15:30
The authors examine the business associations that emerged spontaneously in response to the transition's challenges. They provide empirical evidence that institutions that help coordinate production and trade emerge spontaneously in a widely "disorganized" environment.
- Household strategies for coping with poverty and social exclusion in post-crisis Russia
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January 2, 2008 15:29
What strategies have Russian households used, to cope with economic hardship in the wake of recent financial crisis? Which coping strategies have been most effective in reducing poverty for different groups of households? And how have people been able to adapt to the dramatic drop in formal cash incomes? The authors look at these questions using subjective evaluations of coping strategies used by household survey respondents to mitigate the effects of the Russian financial crisis on their welfare.
- Gender dimensions of pension reform in the Former Soviet Union
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January 2, 2008 15:27
The authors analyze the gender implications of pension reform in Kazakhstan, the Kygyz Republic, Latvia, and Moldova. The new systems deliberately penalize early retirement and reward longer careers, so that with no change in behavior or policy, women's pensions will be lower than men's on average.
