Download or read book Governing Infrastructure Regulators in Fragile Environments written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2019-07-30 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Countries exiting conflict and fragility face many urgent priorities and almost invariably suffer from substantial infrastructure deficits. There is typically very little infrastructure investment during periods of fragility and conflict, and existing installations are often damaged or destroyed. The purpose of this manual is to contribute to improvements in the quality of infrastructure regulation. It does so by identifying key principles for the governance of infrastructure regulators and by suggesting how these principles can be introduced successfully and maintained over time. The introduction of cross-cutting governance principles for regulators is based on the assumption that a uniform set of governance principles can be less costly and complex for governments to implement and enforce and will provide potential investors with a more consistent and predictable regulatory environment to navigate. The manual also discusses the process of implementing regulatory governance reforms in fragile contexts. Improvements in governance frameworks for infrastructure regulators will support better and accountable regulatory decision-making, as well as increased investment and overall economic development. Case studies from relevant country experience complement and provide context to the discussion on principles.
Download or read book World Development Report 1994 written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1994 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World Development Report 1994 examines the link between infrastructure and development and explores ways in which developing countries can improve both the provision and the quality of infrastructure services. In recent decades, developing countries have made substantial investments in infrastructure, achieving dramatic gains for households and producers by expanding their access to services such as safe water, sanitation, electric power, telecommunications, and transport. Even more infrastructure investment and expansion are needed in order to extend the reach of services - especially to people living in rural areas and to the poor. But as this report shows, the quantity of investment cannot be the exclusive focus of policy. Improving the quality of infrastructure service also is vital. Both quantity and quality improvements are essential to modernize and diversify production, help countries compete internationally, and accommodate rapid urbanization. The report identifies the basic cause of poor past performance as inadequate institutional incentives for improving the provision of infrastructure. To promote more efficient and responsive service delivery, incentives need to be changed through commercial management, competition, and user involvement. Several trends are helping to improve the performance of infrastructure. First, innovation in technology and in the regulatory management of markets makes more diversity possible in the supply of services. Second, an evaluation of the role of government is leading to a shift from direct government provision of services to increasing private sector provision and recent experience in many countries with public-private partnerships is highlighting new ways to increase efficiency and expand services. Third, increased concern about social and environmental sustainability has heightened public interest in infrastructure design and performance.
Download or read book Reforming Infrastructure written by Ioannis Nicolaos Kessides and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2004 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Electricity, natural gas, telecommunications, railways, and water supply, are often vertically and horizontally integrated state monopolies. This results in weak services, especially in developing and transition economies, and for poor people. Common problems include low productivity, high costs, bad quality, insufficient revenue, and investment shortfalls. Many countries over the past two decades have restructured, privatized and regulated their infrastructure. This report identifies the challenges involved in this massive policy redirection. It also assesses the outcomes of these changes, as well as their distributional consequences for poor households and other disadvantaged groups. It recommends directions for future reforms and research to improve infrastructure performance, identifying pricing policies that strike a balance between economic efficiency and social equity, suggesting rules governing access to bottleneck infrastructure facilities, and proposing ways to increase poor people's access to these crucial services.
Download or read book The Interior Ministry s Role in Security Sector Reform written by Robert Perito and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most critical, and most often neglected, focus of security sector reform (SSR) is the bureaucratic agency responsible for the police and other internal security forces. In Iraq, Afghanistan, and earlier peace and stability operations, the United States went directly to the task of training indigenous police, giving little thought to the interior ministry, the institution to which the police would report.
Download or read book Information and Communication Technologies written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Knowledge is a fundamental driver of increased productivity and global competition. Information and communication technologies provide a foundation for building up and applying knowledge in private and public sectors. Countries with information infrastructures that are well developed and that use innovative information technology applications, have advantages for sustained economic growth and social development. Developing countries face opportunity costs when delaying greater access to and use of information infrastructures and technologies. As these information and communication technologies are the centre of World Bank Strategic Directions Framework priorities, increasing the climate for investment and sustainable growth at the same time as empowering and investing in poor people. Implementing a strategy to support information and communication technologies development in client countries is high on the World Bank Group agenda.
Download or read book Institutional Options for the Provision of Infrastructure written by Christine Kessides and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1993-01-01 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper explains why tough public sector reform and a sound macroeconomy are essential to sustained growth. It provides a strategy to help countries evaluate how well their governments' policies work. Decisionmakers will learn ways to build an evaluations program that can make governments more accountable and improve their performance. Some options could include making central banks independent, eliminating earmarked funds, and balancing the national budget. The author suggests which government offices should oversee and develop evaluation policies to get the best results, and explains why evaluation results must be linked with all budget decisions. He describes the political and economic environment that allows the evaluation process to develop freely. Also discussed is the role that the World Bank and other insti- tutions should play in supporting evaluation programs. The study examines how sound evaluation can lead to more consistent international policies and better international governance.
Download or read book The Internet Encyclopedia Volume 1 A F written by and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2004-11-11 with total page 851 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Internet Encyclopedia in a 3-volume reference work on the internet as a business tool, IT platform, and communications and commerce medium.
Download or read book African Journal of Business and Economic Research written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 748 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Handbook for Evaluating Infrastructure Regulatory Systems written by Ashley C. Brown and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than 200 new infrastructure regulators have been created around the world in the last 15 years. They were established to encourage clear and sustainable long-term economic and legal commitments by governments and investors to encourage new investment to benefit existing and new customers. There is now considerable evidence that both investors and consumers-the two groups that were supposed to have benefited from these new regulatory systems-have often been disappointed with their performance. The fundamental premise of this book is that regulatory systems can be successfully reformed only if there are independent, objective and public evaluations of their performance. Just as one goes to a medical doctor for a regular health checkup, it is clear that infrastructure regulation would also benefit from periodic checkups. This book provides a general framework as well as detailed practical guidance on how to perform such "regulatory checkups."
Download or read book Seeds of Corruption written by Harry G. Broadman and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2000 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economists in the field of industrial organization, antitrust, and regulation have long recognized certain factors as potent determinants of opportunistic behavior, corruption, and "capture" of government officials. Only now are these relationships becoming conventional wisdom among specialists in economies in transition.
Download or read book Regulatory Governance and Sector Performance written by Luis Andres and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2008 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: This paper contributes to the literature that explores the link between regulatory governance and sector performance. The paper develops an index of regulatory governance and estimates its impact on sector performance, showing that indeed regulation and its governance matter. The authors use two unique databases: (i) the World Bank Performance Database, which contains detailed annual data for 250 private and public electricity companies in Latin America and the Caribbean; and (ii) the Electricity Regulatory Governance Database, which contains data on several aspects of the governance of electricity agencies in the region. The authors run different models to explain the impacts of change in ownership and different characteristics of the regulatory agency on the performance of the utilities. The results suggest that the mere existence of a regulatory agency, regardless of the utilities' ownership, has a significant impact on performance. Furthermore, after controlling for the existence of a regulatory agency, the ownership dummies are still significant and with the expected signs. The authors propose an experience measure in order to identify the gradual impact of the regulatory agency on utility performance. The results confirm this hypothesis. In addition, the paper explores two different measures of governance, an aggregate measure of regulatory governance, and an index based on principal components, including autonomy, transparency, and accountability. The findings show that the governance of regulatory agencies matters and has significant effects on performance.
Download or read book Making Trade in Services Supportive of Development in Commonwealth Small and Low income Countries written by Patrick F. J. Macrory and published by Commonwealth Secretariat. This book was released on 2011 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Economic Paper assesses new innovative measures in trade in service negotiations that reflect the vulnerabilities and challenges faced by developing countries. It outlines the approaches that can help small and low-income countries in a manner that is practical and supportive of their economic development.
Download or read book Services Trade and Growth written by Aaditya Mattoo and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2012 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The competitiveness of firms in open economies is increasingly determined by access to low-cost and high-quality producer services - telecommunications, transport and distribution services, financial intermediation, etc. This paper discusses the role of services in economic growth, focusing in particular on channels through which openness to trade in services may increase productivity at the level of the economy as a whole, industries and the firm. The authors explore what recent empirical work suggests could be done to enhance comparative advantage in the production and export of services and how to design policy reforms to open services markets to greater foreign participation in a way that ensures not just greater efficiency but also greater equity in terms of access to services.
Download or read book Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists written by and published by . This book was released on 1973-10 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is the premier public resource on scientific and technological developments that impact global security. Founded by Manhattan Project Scientists, the Bulletin's iconic "Doomsday Clock" stimulates solutions for a safer world.
Download or read book Meeting Asia s Infrastructure Needs written by Asian Development Bank and published by Asian Development Bank. This book was released on 2017-02-01 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Infrastructure is essential for development. This report presents a snapshot of the current condition of developing Asia's infrastructure---defined here as transport, power, telecommunications, and water supply and sanitation. It examines how much the region has been investing in infrastructure and what will likely be needed through 2030. Finally, it analyzes the financial and institutional challenges that will shape future infrastructure investment and development.
Download or read book Opening Markets for Trade in Services written by Juan A. Marchetti and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-02 with total page 761 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trade in services is an increasingly important part of global trade and, as such, figures prominently in multilateral, regional and bilateral trade negotiations. In this volume of essays, academics, negotiators and experts from various international organizations explore the achievements of such negotiations, together with the challenges and opportunities which arise and the motivations that come into play in such negotiations. The contributions highlight issues in important services sectors, such as distribution, energy, finance, telecommunications, air transport and the postal and audiovisual sectors, as well as areas such as cross-border trade and government procurement. Case studies look into the experiences of specific countries. The focus on sector analysis and country experiences sheds light on the state of services liberalization and the regulation of international trade in services at the beginning of the twenty-first century, making this an indispensable guide to ongoing and future international negotiations on this topic.
Download or read book Regulation Deregulation Reregulation written by Claude Ménard and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After 25 years of industry restructuring, regulatory reform and deregulation across many industrial sectors in many countries, it is an appropriate time to take stock of the impacts of these reforms on consumers, producers and overall economic performance. This book contains the latest thinking on these issues by a distinguished international group of scholars. It s a collection of essays for our time that is well worth reading. Paul L. Joskow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US The most exciting development in the study of regulation in the past quarter century is research on the incentives that are created by the details of the procedures for creating and enforcing regulatory rules. This book brings together a rich collection of studies that collectively advance our understanding of the effect of regulatory governance on the performance of regulated firms, with important lessons about how to design more effective regulatory instruments and processes. Roger G. Noll, Stanford University, US Cycles of poorly-designed or weakly-enforced regulation, disappointing performance and political over-reaction are now familiar to students of regulated industries. Nourished by recent developments in the economics of incentives, including their transaction costs and property rights dimensions, and written by renowned experts in the field, Regulation, Deregulation, Reregulation is a must-read for all those interested in the economics and politics of regulation. A timely book, the publication of which coincides with the designing of a post-subprime regulatory framework for the financial industry. Jean Tirole, Toulouse School of Economics, France Building on Oliver Williamson s original analysis, the contributors introduce new ideas, different perspectives and provide tools for better understanding changes in the approach to regulation, the reform of public utilities, and the complex problems of governance. They draw largely upon a transaction cost approach, highlighting the challenges faced by major economic sectors and identifying critical flaws in prevailing views on regulation. Deeply rooted in sector analysis, the book conveys a central message of new institutional economics: that theory should be continuously confronted by facts, and reformed or revolutionized accordingly. With its emphasis on the institutional embeddedness of regulatory issues and the problems generated by the benign neglect of institutional factors in the reform of major public utilities, this book will provide a wide-ranging audience with challenging views on the dynamics of regulatory approaches. Economists, political scientists, postgraduate students, researchers and policymakers with an interest in institutional economics and economic organization will find the book to be a stimulating and enlightening read.
