Major issues in monetary and fiscal policies

International finance ; Monetary policy ; Fiscal policy

"First Mover" Investment Advantages in Sub-Saharan Africa: Why Northern Multinationals Should React (Quickly) to Their Southern Counterparts

Direktinvestition; Multinationales Unternehmen; Standortfaktor; Afrika südlich der Sahara

Reducing structural dominance and entry barriers in Russian industry

Many industrial firms in Russia have undergone changes in ownership, but relatively few have been competitively restructured. Using survey and other data, the author suggests that much of Russian industry is immune from robust competition because of heavy vertical integration, geographic segmentation, and the concentration of buyers and sellers, in selected markets. Moreover, regulatory constraints protect incumbent firms from competition with new entrants, both domestic and foreign. The author sketches a reform agenda for Russia's post-privatization program, which emphasizes the restructuring of anti-competitive structures and the reduction of barriers to entry. The author's proposed reform agenda calls broadly for strengthening Russia's nascent rules-based framework for competition policy to reduce discretion, increase transparency, and improve accountability.Markets and Market Access,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Small and Medium Size Enterprises,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Private Participation in Infrastructure,Small Scale Enterprise,Microfinance

Competition, Corporate Governance, and regulation in Central Asia - Uzbekistan's structural reform challenges

In Uzbekistan state enterprises are being changed into shareholding companies, and private enterprises account for 45 percent of all registered firms. But business decisions to set prices, output, and investment are often not market-based, nor wholly within the purview of businesses, especially those in commercial manufacturing and services. Lines of authority for corporate governance - from state enterprises to private enterprises - are ill-defined, so there is little discipline on corporate performance and little separation between government and business. Nascent frameworks have been created for competition policy (for firms in the commercial sector) and regulatory policy (governing utilities in the infrastructure monopoly sector). Bur implementation and enforcement have been hampered by old-style instruments (such as price controls0 rooted in central planning, by lack of a strong independent regulatory rule-making authority, by the limited understanding, of the basic concepts of competition and regulatory reform, and by weak institutional capabilities for analyzing market structure and business performance. Based on fieldwork in Uzbekistan, the author recommends: 1) Deepening senior policy officials'understanding of, and appreciation of the benefits from, enterprise competition and how it affects economic growth. 2) Reforming competition policy institutions and legal frameworks in line with the country's goal of strengthening structural reforms and improving macroeconomic policy. 3) Improving the ability of government and associated institutions to assess Uzbekistan's industrial market structure and the determinants of enterprise conduct and performance. 4) Making the authority responsible for competition and regulatory policymaking into an independent agency - a"champion"of competition - answerable directly to the prime minister. 5) Strengthening incentives and institutions for corporate governance and bringing them in line with international practice. 6) Subjecting infrastructure monopolies to systemic competitive restructuring and unbundling, where appropriate. For other utilities, de-politicize tariff setting and implementation of regulations; ensure that price, pro-competitive (creating a level playing field among users); and increase transparency and accountability to the public.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Markets and Market Access,Enterprise Development&Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,National Governance,Access to Markets,Markets and Market Access,Economic Theory&Research

Remote semi-continuous flow rate logging seepage meter

The movement of groundwater and its associated solutes from upland regions was implicated in the degradation of receiving surface water bodies. Current efforts to directly measure this influx of water incorporate manually operated seepage meters which are hindered by severe limitations. A prototype seepage meter was developed by NASA Langley Research Center and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University that will allow for the semi-continuous collection and data logging of seepage flux across the sediment water interface. The meter is designed to operate at depths to 40 meters, and alleviate or minimize all disadvantages associated with traditional methods while remaining cost effective. The unit was designed to operate independently for time periods on the order of weeks with adjustable sample sequences depending upon hydrologic conditions. When used in conjunction with commercially available pressure transducers, this seepage meter allows for correlations to be made between groundwater discharge and tidal/sea state conditions in coastal areas. Field data from the Chesapeake Bay and Florida Bay systems are presented