Assessing the World Bank's influence on the good governance paradigm

What does governance mean for the World Bank (WB) and how far does the organization influence the world community with this concept? The World Bank primarily focused on economic aspects of governance in the 1980s and progressively moved to its political dimensions in the end of 1990s. The paper discusses the reasons for this global shift and its consistency with regard to the values of the liberal society. Bibliometric methods are used to evaluate the role of the Bank as a producer of knowledge on this specific issue. In addition the academic relationships that the organization built to shape the 'good governance' concept are explored. As well as networking, which contributes to the promotion of its worldwide influence, the soft and hard powers of the Bank are seen at work through aid allocation systems. The potential influence of the main WB's governance indicators (CPIA, WGI and Doing Business) is depicted through what donors claim, and beyond rhetoric, through what correlations suggest. For each of the main international donors, cross-sectional econometric regressions are run on large samples of developing countries (2005-2008). According to the donor we look at, empirical results do not reject strong covariations between new commitments and the CPIA or the WGI.The World Bank;governance;liberal society;Knowledge;aid commitments;Soft and Hard power

Total Factor Productivity of Tunisia’s manufacturing sectors: measurement, determinants and convergence towards OECD countries

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, sector-based Total Factor Productivity (TFP) is calculated for six Tunisian manufacturing sectors over the period 1983-2002. Economic determinants of the productive performance are also investigated. In doing so, we take care of the direction of the causality by using a panel data Granger type-test. The recent literature in international economics has placed a particular emphasis on the relation between TFP and variables reflecting the potential impact of both trade and financial openness. Sector-based TFPs proved to be sensitive to some of these variables, highlighting a causality that does not reject the stimulating impact of exports and foreign direct investments. Second, the paper implements some panel data unit root tests to investigate the statistical hypothesis of TFP catching up of Tunisia with OECD members. In benchmarking each of the six Tunisian sectors by those of the most developed countries, panel data unit root tests do not reject the hypothesis of an overall catching- up for five of them.

Total Factor Productivity of Tunisia's manufacturing sectors: measurement, determinants and convergence towards OECD countries

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, sector-based Total Factor Productivity (TFP) is calculated for six Tunisian manufacturing sectors over the period 1983-2002. Economic determinants of the productive performance are also investigated. In doing so, we take care of the direction of the causality by using a panel data Granger type-test. The recent literature in international economics has placed a particular emphasis on the relation between TFP and variables reflecting the potential impact of both trade and financial openness. Sector-based TFPs proved to be sensitive to some of these variables, highlighting a causality that does not reject the stimulating impact of exports and foreign direct investments. Second, the paper implements some panel data unit root tests to investigate the statistical hypothesis of TFP catching up of Tunisia with OECD members. In benchmarking each of the six Tunisian sectors by those of the most developed countries, panel data unit root tests do not reject the hypothesis of an overall catching- up for five of them.cerdi

Exchange Rate Undervaluation to Foster Manufactured Exports: A Deliberate Strategy?

Recent literature suggests that a proactive strategy consisting of deliberate real exchange rate depreciation can promote exports diversification and growth. This paper is built on these recent developments and investigates whether four developing countries have adopted such a strategy. Data from Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia are used to construct and compare the macroeconomic Real Effective exchange rate (REER), similar exchange rates at the sector level (SREER) and the macroeconomic Equilibrium Real Effective exchange rate (EREER). It shows that there are instances where the objective of diversifying exports through depreciation of exchange rate comes at the expense of further misalignment (REER departs from the EREER) and, then, monetary authorities are doomed to choose. The results show that Morocco and Tunisia are choosing the proactive exchange rate strategy while Egypt and Jordan are not. This fits with the observation that the former are doing much better than the latter in terms of exports diversification.Exchange rate, Misalignment, Undervaluation, Exports diversification

Exchange Rate Undervaluation and Manufactured Exports: A Deliberate Strategy?

Recent literature suggests that a proactive exchange rate policy in accordance with price incentives (i.e. undervaluation) can foster manufactured exports and growth. This paper is built on these recent developments and investigates, using a sample of 52 developing countries, whether such a proactive exchange rate policy is adopted. The results show that during the period 1991-2005 a number of countries has used undervaluation to foster the price competitiveness of manufactured exports.Exchange rate;Misalignment;Undervaluation;Exports diversification

Textile manufacturing in eight developing countries:How far does the business environment explain firms' productive inefficiency?

Production frontiers and inefficiency determinants are estimated by using stochastic models. Textile manufacturing is considered for a sample of eight developing countries encompassing about one thousand firms. We find that the most influential individual inefficiency determinants relate to in-house organization. Both access to financing and infrastructural services (e.g. power supply, modern information technologies...) also matter. Information about determinants is then regrouped into three broad categories (e.g. managerial organization, economic environment, institutions) by using principal component analyses. Results do not reject the hypothesis that managerial know-how and the quality of institutions are the most important determinants. The impact of the external economic environment is of less importance although statistically significant. Sector-based simulations are then proposed in order to assess productivity gains which would occur if firms had the opportunity to evolve in most favorable environments within the sample. Domestic and international production contexts are considered, respectively. When referring to domestic benchmarks, the contribution of in-house organization prevails as the main source of gains for the eight countries. The role of institutions proves dominant for Egypt and India when focusing on international simulations.textile;firms;Technical efficiency;organizational know-how;productivity;institutions;external economic environment;one step stochastic frontier method

Firms'productive performance and the investment climate in developing economies : an application to MENA manufacturing

Drawing on the World Bank Investment Climate Assessment surveys, this paper investigates the relationship between firm-level technical efficiency and the investment climate for 22 developing economies and eight manufacturing industries. The authors first propose three measures of firms'productive performance: labor productivity, total factor productivity, and technical efficiency. They show that, on average, enterprises in the Middle East and North Africa have performed poorly compared with other countries in the sample. The exception is Morocco, whose various measures of firm-level productivity rank close to the ones of the most productive economies. The analysis also reveals that the competitiveness of countries in the region has been handicapped by high unit labor cost, compared with main competitors like China and India. The empirical results show then? that the investment climate matters for firms'productive performance. This is true (depending on the industry) for the quality of various infrastructure, the experience and education level of the labor force, the cost of and access to financing, as well as different dimensions of the government-business relation. The analysis reveals that some industries, more exposed to international competition, are more sensitive to investment climate deficiencies. For some industries, this is also true for small and medium domestic enterprises that do not have the possibility to influence their investment climate or choose their location. These findings bear clear policy implications by showing that increasing firms'size and improving the investment climate (in particular of small and medium firms and industries more exposed to international competition) could constitute a powerful means of industrial development and competitiveness, in the Middle East and North Africa region in particular.Economic Theory&Research,Political Economy,Labor Policies,,Investment and Investment Climate

Despite a difficult 2014 for the French economy, France is still far from being the ‘sick man of Europe’

A number of concerns have been raised about the French economy following disappointing economic figures in 2014. As part of our ‘economies of Europe’ series, Mathieu Plane assesses the development of the French economy since the crisis and whether commentators are right to regard France as the new ‘sick man of Europe’. He argues that while France remains highly dependent on effective policy action at the European level, there is more reason for optimism concerning the economy in 2015 than is commonly recognised

Capital Flows and their Impact on the Real Effective Exchange Rate

This paper analyzes the impact of capital inflows and the exchange rate regime on the real effective exchange rate. A wide range of developing countries (42 countries) is considered with estimation based on panel cointegration techniques. The results show that both public and private inflows cause the real effective exchange rate to appreciate. Among private inflows, portfolio investment has the biggest effect on appreciation, almost seven times that of foreign direct investment or bank loans, and private inflows have the smallest effect. Using a de facto measure of exchange rate flexibility, we find that a more flexible exchange rate helps to dampen appreciation of the real effective exchange rate caused by capital inflows.Private capital flows;real effective exchange rate;exchange rate flexibility;emerging markets;low-income countries;pooled mean group estimator