Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
The Political Economy of Policy Reform : Issues and Implications for Policy Dialogue and Development OperationsThis study addresses the political economy of sector reforms. Sustainable reform processes which improve equity, efficiency and effectiveness in key economic and social sectors are often important elements of national poverty reduction strategies in low- and middle-income countries. For international development agencies wishing to engage in these processes, understanding the significance of power relations within the sector, vested interests, and the links to national political processes can be critical to being an effective actor in policy dialogue. This study explores these issues through the analysis of case studies of World Bank engagement in two areas: agricultural liberalization, and public-private partnerships in water supply and sanitation. The objectives of the study are twofold: (a) to analyze the political economy of reform by looking at stakeholder interests, incentives, institutions, risks, opportunities, and processes from a social analysis perspective; and (b) to illustrate 'what works, why and how' for a better understanding and management of political economy issues in the design and implementation of reforms and development operations. The study draws on operational experiences to inductively develop a conceptual framework that offers an innovative way to look at the political economy of policy reforms. The study presents a solid basis for a future program of work which can address these issues.
-
The World Bank and Governance : The Bank’s Efforts to Help Developing Countries Build State CapacityThis paper examines historically the World Bank's twin features: lending to developing economies to achieve tangible results and advocating specific development policies. Section 1 provides some conceptual underpinnings for the view that an effective state is essential for development. It asks whether development can be engineered, and state capacity increased, with large aid flows. Section 2 sketches the historical evolution of what characterizes the World Bank: lending to developing economies and advocacy of development policy. It concludes that, while the Bank discourse explicitly recognizes that developing countries need to improve their governance and build the capacity of the public sector to improve living standards, the Bank's performance in assisting governments in building state capacity and achieving better governance outcomes has been disappointing. Section 3 proposes an interpretation of why this has been the case. The interpretation is structural, and related to the way the Bank is organized. This concerns in particular (1) how its research is prioritized and used for decision-making, (2) how its leadership achieves a consensus between shareholders who hold different views on the role of government in the economy, and (3) how incentives for its staff emphasize disbursement and short-term success, and not capacity building and longer-term institutional sustainability.
-
Growth without GovernanceIt is well known that there is a strong positive correlation between per capita incomes and the quality of governance across countries. the authors propose an empirical strategy that allows separation of this correlation into (1) a strong positive causal effect running from better governance to higher per capita incomes, and, perhaps surprisingly at first, (2) a weak and even negative causal effect running in the opposite direction from per capita incomes to governance. The first result confirms existing evidence on the importance of good governance for economic development. The second result is new and suggests the absence of a "virtuous circle" in which higher incomes lead to further improvements in governance. This motivates the authors' choice of title, "Growth Without Governance." They document this evidence using a newly updated set of worldwide governance-indicators covering 175 countries for the period 2000-01, and use the results to interpret the relationship between incomes and governance focusing on the Latin America and Caribbean region-within a worldwide empirical context. Finally, the authors speculate about the potential importance of elite influence and state capture in accounting for the surprising negative effects of per capita incomes on governance, present some evidence on such capture in some Latin American countries, and suggest priorities for actions to improve governance when such pernicious elite influence shapes public policy.