World Bank: Private Sector Development (Topic)最新文献

{"title":"Do Standards Matter for Export Success?","authors":"Maggie Xiaoyang Chen, T. Otsuki, J. Wilson","doi":"10.1596/1813-9450-3809","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-3809","url":null,"abstract":"Standards and technical regulations are an increasingly prominent part of the international trade policy debate. In particular, there has been considerable discussion of whether standards and regulations affect trade costs and export prospects for developing countries. In this paper the authors examine how meeting foreign standards affects firms' export performance, reflected in export propensity and market diversification. The analysis draws on the World Bank Technical Barriers to Trade Survey database of 619 firms in 17 developing countries. The results indicate that technical regulations in industrial countries adversely affect firms' propensity to export in developing countries. In particular, testing procedures and lengthy inspection procedures reduce exports by 9 percent and 3percent, respectively. Furthermore, in the model, the difference in standards across foreign countries causes diseconomy of scale for firms and affects decisions about whether to enter export markets. The empirical analysis presented here implies that standards impede exporters' market entry, reducing the likelihood of exporting to more than three markets by 7 percent. In addition, the authors find that firms that outsource components are more challenged by compliance with multiple standards.","PeriodicalId":136223,"journal":{"name":"World Bank: Private Sector Development (Topic)","volume":"11 4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125818681","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Fiscal Responsibility Legislation and Fiscal Adjustment: The Case of Brazilian Local Governments","authors":"L. de Mello","doi":"10.4135/9788132101314.n1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4135/9788132101314.n1","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses trends in fiscal adjustment in Brazil since the 1990s, with particular emphasis on the strengthening of institutions for fiscal policymaking, and its effect on local government finances and their ability to invest in infrastructure building and upgrading. Although fiscal adjustment, which is ongoing, has taken a toll on the government's ability to finance much-needed infrastructure investment, it is not the only culprit. A lack of budget flexibility, against a backdrop of increasing downward rigidities in current spending, also constrains the government's ability to invest. The paper argues that regulatory uncertainty in many sectors, particularly water and sanitation, in which the municipalities play a leading role, has discouraged private sector investment and that the financing of infrastructure building and upgrading goes beyond the municipal level of government. Higher-level jurisdictions are responsible for financing investment in energy and transport infrastructure, for example.","PeriodicalId":136223,"journal":{"name":"World Bank: Private Sector Development (Topic)","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124296134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Have Consumers Benefited from the Reforms in the Electricity Distribution Sector in Latin America?","authors":"A. Estache, Martín A. Rossi","doi":"10.1596/1813-9450-3420","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-3420","url":null,"abstract":"The authors bring new empirical evidence on the impact of the choice of ownership and regulatory regime on firms' productivity and prices paid by consumers. They collect the evidence from a sample of electricity distribution companies in Latin America. The authors rely on estimations of labor and operation and maintenance (O&M) input requirement functions using alternative econometric approaches. Their main conclusions are: 1) Private firms perform better (approximately 30 percent) than public firms. 2) The regulatory regimes matter, so that price-cap regulated firms do better than rate-of-return regulated firms, and firms regulated under hybrid regimes have intermediate performance. 3) Private firms operating under rate of return are at most as efficient as public firms. 4) There is no clear pattern of differences in electricity prices according to the regulatory regime. 5) Final prices fell in general but the drop did not match the productivity gains, implying that the operators and the state share some of the gains in the form of rents and higher tax revenue, respectively.","PeriodicalId":136223,"journal":{"name":"World Bank: Private Sector Development (Topic)","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124482651","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Global Growth of Mutual Funds","authors":"Deepthi Fernando, Leora F. Klapper, Victor Sulla, Dimitri Vittas","doi":"10.1596/1813-9450-3055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-3055","url":null,"abstract":"With few exceptions, mainly in Asia, mutual funds grew explosively in most countries around the world during the 1990s. Equity funds predominated in Anglo-American countries while bond funds predominated in most of Continental Europe, and in middle-income countries. Capital market development (reflecting investor confidence in market integrity, liquidity, and efficiency) and financial system orientation were the main determinants of mutual fund growth. Restrictions on competing products acted as a catalyst for the development of money market and (short-term) bond funds.","PeriodicalId":136223,"journal":{"name":"World Bank: Private Sector Development (Topic)","volume":"81 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125242526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Information Diffusion in International Markets","authors":"M. Olarreaga, Jacques P. Morisset, A. Izquierdo","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1818699","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1818699","url":null,"abstract":"Globalization has been a persistent phenomenon of the post-war period. The gross volume of cross-border capital flows has grown at an average of 25 percent a year, and trade in goods and services has also increased, albeit not as dramatically, but at least twice as fast as world GDP over the past 20 years. Yet, consumers and investors continue to spend and hold a disproportionate share of their assets in local markets-the so-called home-bias has been emphasized by many recent empirical studies. For many researchers, this home bias reflects information asymmetries and the fact that acquiring information across international borders is relatively costly. The main objective of the authors is to identify channels through which information gets disseminated across international markets. They consider three potential channels through which information can affect import and foreign equity purchase decisions in 14 OECD countries. The first channel consists of information spillovers from the commercial to the financial markets and vice-versa. Financial investors and importers share common information, which is also frequently conveyed to them by the same source-banks or financial intermediaries. The second and third channels emphasize seller and buyer reputations in international markets. The seller reputation channel stresses the importance given by, for example, importers in the United States who are considering buying products from Italy to the experience that Canadian and Japanese importers may have accumulated on Italian exporters. The buyer reputation channel examines to what extent a foreign investor or trader seeks information on the reliability of the foreign buyer by assessing his reputation in other countries. While the last two channels are equally important in explaining bilateral import flows, buyer reputation appears to be of greater importance for equity flows in the sample. The authors argue that these three channels may help provide some insights about the recent episodes of contagion across markets and countries that occurred over the past decade. These information channels can create virtuous or vicious circles that may, in turn, lead to unexpected changes in investors' and traders' behaviors across markets.","PeriodicalId":136223,"journal":{"name":"World Bank: Private Sector Development (Topic)","volume":"84 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130041551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Market and Non-Market Transfers of Land in Ethiopia: Implications for Efficiency, Equity, and Non-Farm Development","authors":"K. Deininger, Songqing Jin, M. Demeke, B. Adenew, S. Gebre-Selassie","doi":"10.1596/1813-9450-2992","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-2992","url":null,"abstract":"The authors use data from Ethiopia to empirically assess determinants of participation in land rental markets, compare these to those of administrative land reallocation, and make inferences on the likely impact of households' expectations regarding future redistribution. Results indicate that rental markets outperform administrative reallocation in terms of efficiency and poverty. Households who have part-time jobs in the off-farm sector are significantly more likely to expect land to be taken away from them through administrative means. Eliminating the scope for administrative land reallocation may thus be a precondition for more vigorous development of the off-farm sector.","PeriodicalId":136223,"journal":{"name":"World Bank: Private Sector Development (Topic)","volume":"18 22","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132747530","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An Introduction to Financial and Economic Modeling for Utility Regulators","authors":"A. Estache, Martin A. Rodriguez Pardina, G. Sember, José María Rodríguez","doi":"10.1596/1813-9450-3001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-3001","url":null,"abstract":"The most effective regulators in developing countriesare following remarkably similar approaches. The main common element across\"best practice\"countries is the use of relatively simple quantitative models of operators'behavior and constraints to measure the impact of regulatory decisions on some key financial and economic indicators of concern to the operators, the users, and the government. The authors provide an introduction to the design and use of these models. They draw on lessons from international experience in industrial and developing countries in ordinary or extraordinary revisions and in the context of contract renegotiations. Simplifying somewhat, these models force regulators to recognize that, in the long run, private operators need to at least cover their opportunity cost of capital, including the various types of risks specific to the country, the sector, or the projects with which they are involved. Because these variables change over time, scheduled revisions are needed to allow for adjustments in the key determinants of the rate of return of the operator. These revisions are a recognition of the fact that all these determinants-tariffs, subsidies, quality, investments, and other service obligations-are interrelated and jointly determine the rate of return. At every revision, the rules of the game for the regulator are exactly the same: to figure out the changes in the cost of capital and to adjust the variables driving the rate of return to ensure that it continues to be consistent with the cost of capital. If they can draw on reasonable data, these models do everything any financial model would do for the day-to-day management of a company but take a longer term view and include an explicit identification of the key regulatory instruments. They can monitor the consistency between cash flow generated by the business on the one hand and debt service and operational expense needs on the other to address the main concerns of the operators. They can also account for a large number of key policy factors including access and affordability concerns for various types of consumers. They generally account for the sensitivity of operators and users to various regulatory design options.","PeriodicalId":136223,"journal":{"name":"World Bank: Private Sector Development (Topic)","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122320590","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Trends in the Education Sector from 1993-98","authors":"N. Nguyen","doi":"10.1596/1813-9450-2891","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-2891","url":null,"abstract":"Vietnam has achieved remarkably high rates of school enrollment and has maintained good social indicators (infant and under-five mortality rates, life expectancy, fertility rate, child nutrition, and access to basic services) compared to other countries with similar low income per capita. The author documents and analyzes changes in enrollment and education finance in Vietnam from 1993-98. Enrollment rates increased substantially, but the increases were not equally spread across different income groups, regions, gender, and ethnic groups. The higher the level of education, the larger the gap in school enrollment among different socioeconomic groups. Although school fees were no longer compulsory at the primary level, households paid for many other school-related items, such as books, uniforms, private tutors, lunch, and transportation. These costs are a significant financial burden on the poor. On the other hand, there is considerable variation in public spending per student across regions that, when coupled with variation in enrollment rates across regions, resulted in a not pro-poor public spending pattern, although public spending on primary education was neutral in 1998. Finally, the author investigates whether rates of return to education in the private wage sector changed in the 1990s. She concludes that returns to schooling increased substantially between 1992-93 and 1997-98, especially at the upper secondary education and university levels.","PeriodicalId":136223,"journal":{"name":"World Bank: Private Sector Development (Topic)","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2002-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127022415","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sector Organization, Governance, and the Inefficiency of African Water Utilities","authors":"Antonio Estache, E. Kouassi","doi":"10.1596/1813-9450-2890","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-2890","url":null,"abstract":"The authors analyze the determinants of the efficiency levels reached by twenty one African water utilities. They assess efficiency through the estimation of a production frontier for the sector in Africa. The efficiency estimates confirm much of the common perceptions from partial productivity indicators. They point to a great heterogeneity in the African water utilities' performances, the predominance of constant returns to scale, and the great rate of technological progress. And the authors show that the institutional capacity of the country, as well as its governance quality, are significant driving factors in the performance of each firm.","PeriodicalId":136223,"journal":{"name":"World Bank: Private Sector Development (Topic)","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2002-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127767620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Transforming the Old into a Foundation for the New: Lessons of the Moldova Aria Project","authors":"D. Ellerman, Vladimir G. Kreačič","doi":"10.1596/1813-9450-2866","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-2866","url":null,"abstract":"This paper is a case study of what is recognized as one of the more successful projects in any country in the Europe and Central Asia region, not to mention in the poorest country of the region-Moldova. The ARIA project shows new ways to attack some of the most intractable problems of private sector development in Europe and Central Asia: how to facilitate reorganization and liquidation bankruptcies; how to promote small and medium enterprise spin-offs and new start-ups; and how to promote new learning at the enterprise level, both in the form of\"Marshall Plan\"programs with more advanced post-socialist countries, as well as continuous improvement programs (such as those adapted from Japanese programs). The prime mover for these programs is the quasi-public restructuring agency, ARIA, which was established as part of the Moldova Private Sector Development I loan. ARIA was structured to try to combine private sector entrepreneurship with a public function in the process of restructuring and bankruptcy. The study tries to account for the strategies and innovations that lead to results. And it tries to connect the ARIA strategy to past development literature by viewing the study through Albert Hirschman's work on social learning and change.","PeriodicalId":136223,"journal":{"name":"World Bank: Private Sector Development (Topic)","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2002-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127801853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}