Download or read book Checks and Balances Private Information and the Credibility of Monetary Commitments written by Philip Keefer and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In economically volatile conditions in which it is more difficult for the public to distinguish inflation deliberately generated by government from inflation created by unanticipated economic shocks, the anti-inflationary effect of central bank independence will be unchanged but the effectiveness of exchange rate pegs will be significantly improved. Keefer and Stasavage develop and test several new hypotheses about the anti-inflationary effect of central bank independence and exchange rate pegs in the context of different institutions and different degrees of citizen information about government policies.
Download or read book Checks and Balances Private Information and the Credibility of Monetary Commitments written by Philip Keefer and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: February 2001 In economically volatile conditions in which it is more difficult for the public to distinguish inflation deliberately generated by government from inflation created by unanticipated economic shocks, the anti-inflationary effect of central bank independence will be unchanged but the effectiveness of exchange rate pegs will be significantly improved. Keefer and Stasavage develop and test several new hypotheses about the anti-inflationary effect of central bank independence and exchange rate pegs in the context of different institutions and different degrees of citizen information about government policies. Theory provides strong reason to believe that while central bank independence will prove more effective as a commitment mechanism in countries where multiple players in government have veto power (checks and balances), the number of veto players will have no effect on the credibility of exchange rate pegs. Conversely, Keefer and Stasavage argue that central bank independence does not solve problems of commitment that arise when citizens are imperfectly informed about the contribution of government policy to inflation. Exchange rate pegs, however, mitigate these problems. The authors present extensive evidence from cross-country tests using newly developed data that provide strong support for their propositions. This paper--a product of Regulation and Competition Policy, Development Research Group--is part of a larger effort in the group to understand the institutional conditions for policy reform and success. The authors may be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected].
Download or read book Catastrophe Risk Management written by John D. Pollner and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In providing support for disaster-prone areas such as the Caribbean, the development community has begun to progress from disaster reconstruction assistance to funding for investment in mitigation as an explicit tool for sustainable development. Now it must enter a new phase, applying risk transfer mechanisms to address the financial risk of exposure to catastrophic events that require funding beyond what can be controlled solely through mitigation and physical measures.
Download or read book Decentralization and Accountability written by Stuti Khemani and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Voters in India are more vigilant in monitoring government at the local than at the national level. In state assembly elections voters reward incumbents for local income growth, and punish them for a rise in inequality, over their entire term in office. But in national elections voters behave myopically, rewarding growth in national income and a fall in inflation and inequality only in the year preceding the election.
Download or read book Household Strategies for Coping with Poverty and Social Exclusion in Post crisis Russia written by Michael Lokshin and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For Russian households coping with economic hardship in the wake of the recent financial crisis, the choice of survival strategy has strongly depended on their human capital. The higher a household's level of human capital, the more likely it is to choose an active strategy.
Download or read book Growth Inequality and Poverty written by Martin Ravallion and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One side in the current debate about who benefits from growth has focused solely on average impacts on poverty and inequality, while the other side has focused on the diverse welfare impacts found beneath the averages. Both sides have a point.
Download or read book New Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policies and the Enlargement of the Eurozone written by Christian H. Fahrholz and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-11-17 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work examines the political economy of exchange-rate policies in the eastward expansion of the eurozone. Analysis shows that prospective members of the EMU are likely to pass on some costs of convergence to the current EMU members. The mechanism is an altered exchange-rate policy that utilizes a "threaten-thy-neighbour" strategy. This could ensure a stabilization of the CEECs' convergence toward the EMU, and a successful eastward enlargement of the eurozone.
Download or read book What Does Political Economy Tell Us about Economic Development and Vice Versa written by Philip Keefer and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2004 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Economic Policy and Performance in Industrial Democracies written by Takayuki Sakamoto and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-01-31 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first systematic study of how the interdependence of fiscal and monetary policies and the interaction of party governments and central banks affect the fiscal-policy mix in eighteen industrial democracies in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Oceania. Sakamoto argues that central banks influence on economic policy is far mor
Download or read book Inventories in Developing Countries written by J. Luis Guasch and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: High inventory levels in developing countries increase the cost of doing business and limit productivity and competitiveness. Improvements in infrastructure (roads, ports, and telecommunications) and in market development can help to significantly reduce inventory levels (and thus the cost of doing business), especially when accompanied by effective regulation and the development and deregulation of associated markets.
Download or read book Infrastructure Coverage and the Poor written by Kristin Komives and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The poor in most parts of the world may have electricity (especially in urban areas), but they rarely have water, sewer, and telephone services. When they gain access to local services, however, many do decide to connect.
Download or read book Measuring Poverty Dynamics and Inequality in Transition Economies written by Erzo F. P. Luttmer and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1999 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Estimates of income inequality and the dynamics of poverty are highly sensitive to measurement error and transitory shocks in micro-level data. The apparent high levels of economic mobility in Poland and Russia are driven largely by transitory shocks and noisy data. There is a real risk of an entrenched underclass emerging in these transition economies.
Download or read book Measuring Equity in Health Care Financing written by Adam Wagstaff and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The World Health Organization's latest World health report proposes an index of fairness in health care financing. The index's chief weakness is that it cannot discriminate among progressive, regressive, and horizontally inequitable health financing systems. An alternative approach proposed in the early 1990s is shown to do a better job.
Download or read book The Politics of Exchange Rates in Developing Countries written by Ralph Setzer and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-09-21 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book considers the issue of exchange rate policymaking from a political economy perspective. It illustrates both theoretically and empirically how domestic political and institutional incentives shape exchange rate policies in developing countries. Empirical analysis is based on a panel survey of 47 countries and thereby provides insights on how political and institutional conditions typically affect exchange rate policy.
Download or read book Gender Dimensions of Pension Reform in the Former Soviet Union written by Paulette Castel and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. Still, the implicit financial returns for women remain higher on average than returns for men, because of women's longer life expectancy and because of redistributory minimum pensions. Overall, however, the net change in wealth resulting from the reforms will be larger on average for men than for women, because they will work longer and get a larger pension. Women's longer life expectancy means that women can expect to spend the last years of their lives alone. If their pensions are too low because of their work histories, poverty among elderly women may increase.
Download or read book International Provision of Trade Services Trade and Fragmentation written by Alan V. Deardorff and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author examines the special role that trade liberalization in services industries can play in stimulating trade in both services, and goods. International trade in goods requires inputs from such trade services as transportation, insurance, and finance, for example. Restrictions on services across borders, and within foreign countries add costs, and barriers to international trade. Liberalizing trade in services could also facilitate trade in goods, providing more benefits than one might expect from analysis merely of the services trade. To emphasize the point, the author notes that the benefits for trade are arguably enhanced by the phenomenon of fragmentation. The more that production processes become split across locations, with the fragments tied together, and coordinated by various trade services, the greater the gains from reductions in the costs of services. The incentives for such fragmentation can be greater across countries, than within countries, because of the greater differences in factor prices, and technologies. But the service costs of international fragmentation can also be larger, especially if regulations, and restrictions impede the international provision of services. As a result, trade liberalization in services can stimulate the fragmentation of production of both goods, and services, thus increasing international trade, and the gains from trade even further. Since fragmentation seems to characterize an increasing portion of world specialization, the importance of service liberalization is growing apace.
Download or read book The Design of Incentives for Health Care Providers in Developing Countries written by Jeffrey S. Hammer and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whatever the theoretical attractiveness of certain policy options, the fact that public employees are people who make independent decisions about their careers and lifestyles can set bounds on how well government agencies can deliver promised services, such as universal health care, including in rural areas. Hammer and Jack examine the design and limitations of incentives for health care providers to serve in rural areas in developing countries. Governments face two problems: it is costly to compensate well-trained urban physicians enough to relocate to rural areas, and it is difficult to ensure quality care when monitoring performance is costly or impossible.
