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Publications (33)
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Institutions are altered by conflict, depending on the scale, duration and type of war. At one extreme, formal political, social and economic institutions may be completely destroyed (e.g. Somalia), while the importance and type of informal institutions may be changed. This survey addresses some of...
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In spite of not being ‘public goods’ in the strict sense of the term, public provision has been a common way of supplying utilities services around the world. Among the major reasons underlying the dominant position of the public sector as the provider of infrastructure are the recognition of the...
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Financial development is vulnerable to social conflict. Conflict reduces the demand for domestic currency as a medium of exchange and a store of value. Conflict also leads to poor quality governance, including weak regulation of the financial system, thereby undermining the sustainability of...
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– Subsidies and Service Obligations
Any infrastructure reformers concerned with social issues in a developing country need to address two problems. The first is increasing access by the poor, and the second is ensuring consumption affordability, i.e. the ability of the poor to pay for both consumption and the amortization of the...
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The privatization of the national public utilities that took place almost a decade ago in Argentina seem to be explained by the persisting deficits of the enterprises, a general dissatisfaction with their performance and the difficulties government faced in their control. During the period of...
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– Lessons from Eritrea
With the Derg's overthrow in 1991, Eritrea embarked on the construction of a new state. New economic institutions were created, and considerable reform undertaken. Problems in co-ordinating reform and reconstruction were largely avoided, mainly because of the institutional ‘clean slate’ facing the...
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Privatization, together with liberalization and deregulation, constituted the core of Mozambique's economic transition. Privatization in Mozambique has taken place on an unusually large scale in comparison with the rest of Africa. Privatization interacted with military demobilization and political...
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In 1991, the new Government of Ethiopia faced a triple fiscal challenge. First, a major effort was required to overhaul and modernize the tax system. Second, the need to switch expenditure from military to civilian uses had to take place within a potentially severely reduced resource total. The...
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Ethiopia is one of a number of SSA economies that adopted state-led development strategies in the 1970s (others include Angola and Mozambique), and suffered from intense conflict (leading to the fall of the Derg regime in 1991). The new government was therefore faced with the twin tasks of...
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Angola’s difficulties in achieving macro-economic stability and economic liberalization have serious implications for private-sector development. Hyperinflation, and frequent policy reversal, constrain and distort investment in both the informal and formal parts of the private sector. But macro...
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– Access to Basic Services in Bolivia
This paper analyses the privatization of utilities in Bolivia, detailing the particularities of the capitalization mechanism which was used for this purpose. The analysis suggests that capitalization and regulation, and the liberalization of the utilities sector more generally, succeeded in...
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Relying on a general equilibrium model of Argentina’s economy calibrated for 1993 and internalizing all productivity and scale gains achieved up to 1999, this paper isolates the distributional effects of utilities reform from the impact of other reforms taking place in the country during the 1990s...
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Since large-scale programmes of post-war resettlement and reintegration are costly, it is important to learn the lessons of the resettlement programme started after the end of Eritrea's liberation war in 1991. Eritrea's system of land tenure largely facilitated resettlement (although long-term...
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The list of illnesses afflicting Angolan society is a long one: political instability, civil war, macroeconomic mismanagement, and the desperation born of poverty. A profound sense of uncertainty afflicts all levels of society-the government (and its opponents), entrepreneurs and rural and urban...
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Privatization has been one of the primary factors generating changes in the Chilean economy over the last decade. Privatization has faced some opposition due part to its uncertain effect on employment and prices. Despite the importance of the topic, only few attempts have been made to analyse...
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– Communities, Entrepreneurs, and States
Africa has become synonymous with conflict. There were armed conflicts in 16 of Africa's 54 countries in 1999. For Africa to recover, communities must reconstruct, private sectors must revitalize, and states must transform themselves. Aid donors, NGOs, and international business can do much to help...
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