The five former Soviet republics have become separate states, developing at different rates and in different directions, and with different political and economic regimes. As a result, the cohesion of the region has broken down and economic...

This paper synthesises the existing literature on human capital formation and foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries. The aim is to take a bird’s eye view of the complex linkages between the activities of multinational enterprises...

In recent years, the role of institutions for development has received considerable attention from development researchers, policy makers and practitioners. This paper reviews the evidence on the impact of institutions on growth and other development...

This paper discusses major policy issues related to commodity dependence and export diversification in low-income countries. Contrary to some widely-held view, it argues that natural resources are not necessarily a “curse” — that they do not condemn...

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the public procurement system in three East African countries: Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. In response to both domestic and international pressures, these countries have recently undertaken important...

What contribution can information technology (IT) make to India’s overall economic development? This paper provides an analytical framework centred around the concepts of comparative advantage, complementarities, and innovation. There is strong...

China’s climate policy over the coming decades will be crucial to efforts to slow global warming. While CO2 emissions growth slowed in the 1990s, it is too early to know if this represents the beginning of a long-term downward trend in the carbon...

The Chinese software industry is small and underdeveloped, compared with its computer and other information technology (IT) hardware industry and compared with India’s software industry. Yet, current status is not necessarily a good guide to future...

Poor people lack access to health care with a negative impact on their dignity, human capital formation and their risk-management options. Recently an emerging movement of community-based health insurance schemes has attracted the attention of policy...

Competition among governments to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) has grown significantly. This paper investigates the extent to which the size of incentive packages offered to investors by governments is driven by competitive pressure to...

This paper studies the puzzling lack of correlation between income and schooling in macro regressions. It is argued that the root of the puzzle is threefold. First, there is a problem of a proper definition of the way in which years of schooling...

Concerns about corporate governance standards have often centred on emerging markets, notably after the 1997-98 Asian crisis. A series of corporate scandals have now raised investor concerns over the quality of earnings and opaque balance sheet...

Latin American sovereign bonds represent a significant share of the emerging debt class (50 per cent by early 2001) and so have considerably shaped the dynamics of this market. Recent financial turmoil, contagion episodes and investors’ renewed...

This paper investigates the consequences of Basel II for international capital flows to emerging markets. The paper shows that the magnitude of effects critically depends on a number of assumptions, including: the mapping of risk weights to ratings,...

The debate about whether fixed or flexible exchange-rate regimes are better suited to guaranteeing stability has received added stimulus from the macroeconomic crisis in Argentina. This paper argues that it is misleading solely to concentrate on...

The paper attempts to explain why single factor explanations of the poverty of nations are usually found to be unsatisfactory. Middle- and low-income countries excluding sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, have an income per head which stands at about...

Many existing works using firm-level data sets have examined whether or not knowledge spills over from MNEs to domestically owned firms in a less developed country, but the literature has not come to a general consensus on the presence of spillovers....

After a review of the literature, this paper concludes that there is potential for significant “spillover effects” from FDI into host countries. However, it identifies some limitations of this potential to do with the stock of human capital, the...

This paper takes the case of Southeast Asia to examine the role played by multinational corporations (MNCs) in the transfer of knowledge and formation of human capital in FDI host nations. It explores the changing nature of FDI within the region and...

This paper discusses policy options available to government policy makers in developing countries to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) and influence the behaviour of transnational corporations (TNCs), and it focuses on the effects these...