REFORM OF TRADE POLICY: Recent Evidence from Theory and Practice

In the 1980s many developing countries began to recognize thatrestrictive trade policies can constrain growth. To facilitatetrade and integration into the world economy, many countrieshave embarked on reform programs. This survey synthesizes theconclusions of the literature on trade policy reform with thoseof a recent study by the World Bank analyzing reforms in developingcountries, particularly those supported by adjustment lendingprograms. Its objective is to shed light on some of the questionsabout these programs to guide policymakers in the future. Thearticle reviews conditions in these countries before trade policyreforms were implemented and examines how much reform actuallytook place. It also examines the effects of the reforms on economicperformance and reviews the factors that constrained the reformprocess. The survey considers the most important issues in designingand implementing trade policy reforms and concludes that althoughpast reforms have had a positive impact, future programs shouldemphasize three elements: reducing the level of protection,maintaining macroeconomic stability, and accounting for theconflicts and complementarities with other policies.      

Intended or Unintended Consequences? Resource Erosion in New Zealand's Government Departments

Internationally, a feature of public sector reforms over the last twenty years is the characterisation of negative effects as unintended consequences, yet the reform programme continues as before (Humphrey et al., 1993 and 1998). This article reports the findings from an investigation of ostensibly unintended consequences of New Zealand's public sector financial management system: resource erosion in government departments which both escapes parliamentary scrutiny and damages departments' capability to perform even core functions (State Services Commission, 1998a; and Controller and Auditor–General, 1999). The findings suggest that these effects might not be unintended. The system's structures and processes, including designed–in resource erosion processes and a surreptitious approach, are highly consistent with those advocated to facilitate privatisation.     

What Can Countries in Other Regions Learn from Social Security Reform in Latin America?

About a dozen countries in Latin America have enacted reformsthat include elements being contemplated elsewhere, includingthe partial privatization of social security. It is not easyto draw universal lessons for social security reform from theexperience of countries such as Argentina, Chile, and Mexico,however, where sizeable public pension systems went bankruptbefore the populations aged, mainly because of mismanagement.Most developing economies have much smaller social securitysystems. Relatively well-managed systems in industrial countriesface problems that are long term in nature and have been broughtabout by an aging population. The experiences of Latin Americanevertheless offer some general lessons for countries in otherparts of the world. These lessons relate to changes in labormarket incentives accompanying reforms and how workers reactto them, government actions that have met with success in managingthe transition to funded pensions, and the expectations of individualsfrom social security systems. Latin America's reforms suggestthat the most effective approach is to keep payroll taxes low,governments solvent, and social security systems focused onproviding reasonable insurance against poverty in old age. JEL codes: G23, H31, H53, H55, J26     

ISSUES IN MEDIUM-TERM MACROECONOMIC ADJUSTMENT

Four years after the onset of the world debt crisis, the issueis how to restore growth. The answer is structural adjustment,both macro and micro. At the macro level, adjustments have tobe made to the structure of aggregate demand and supply to restoregrowth while generating the needed trade surpluses. This meansprimarily real exchange rates that are maintained at appropriatelevels and an emphasis on investment. At the micro level, itis argued that most developing countries need to liberalizetrade, allow the price system to operate, develop financialsystems, reform taxes, and improve the efficiency of publicenterprises, perhaps by selling them. The article discussesthe nature of these two types of reforms and the policy andresearch issues relevant to World Bank analysis of growth programs.      

拉丁美洲养老保险改革及其对中国的启示

自20世纪80年代起拉丁美洲国家对养老保险制度进行改革,将养老保险由国家公共管理改革为私有化运营或多种模式并存的方式。拉丁美洲国家作为发展中国家,其背景、社会条件和经济实力与中国类似,可以作为中国养老保险改革的参照样板;其多样化的改革方式及复杂的改革背景可以作为实践案例对中国的养老保险改革提供参考,对中国正在进行的养老保险改革和新模式创立提供借鉴。本文从国际化的视角选取拉美国家进行案例研究,通过比较分析其各自改革的手段和效果,结合中国的实际情况进行分析借鉴;尤其针对在加速城市化背景下中国长期二元社会突显的大批城乡移民养老保险问题,根据拉美私营化改革结果,借鉴吸收其经验教训,创新性提出中国城乡移民养老保险多元化的经营模式。     

Why Most Developing Countries Should Not Try New Zealand's Reforms

During the past decade New Zealand has introduced far-reachingreforms in the structure and operation of government departmentsand agencies. This model has attracted interest in developingcountries because it promises significant gains in operationalefficiency. But developing countries, which are dominated byinformal markets, are risky candidates for applying the NewZealand model. The author suggests that basic reforms to strengthenrule-based government and pave the way for robust markets shouldbe undertaken first.      

The Government Transformation Programme of Malaysia: a successful approach to public service reform

The 2009 Malaysian Government Transformation Programme (GTP) could be useful as a model for reform given its positive impact on improving public services in targeted key result areas. This paper assesses the GTP's approach in the context of the wider debate on whether reforms should be based on best practices or whether they should be diagnostic or problem-solving in approach. The GTP's success was largely the result of blending both approaches. The GTP experience in Malaysia provides a number of insights and lessons for delivering intelligent reforms quickly and effectively.     

Evolution of Corporate Law and the Transplant Effect: Lessons from Six Countries

The pattern of legal change in countries that have their legalsystems transplanted from abroad differs markedly from countriesthat develop their own systems, irrespective of the legal familyfrom which their laws come. In "transplant" countries, law oftenstagnates for long periods of time; when change takes place,it tends to be radical, if not erratic. External models remaindominant even years after the law was transplanted. Althoughthere is some evidence that transplant countries have engagedin comprehensive legal reforms in response to the pressuresof globalization, it is still too early to judge whether thesenew changes can be taken as a sign that the legal systems inthese countries have started a process of endogenous legal evolution.      

以市场检验推动公共服务型政府建设

20世纪80年代以来,在"新公共管理"运动的推动下,以英国、新西兰、澳大利亚为代表的一些国家普遍实行了"公共服务市场化"改革。这一改革浪潮席卷世界,并逐步发展成为大多数国家转变政府职能的一种主流模式。实践证明,与传统的政府"自给自足"和"垄断供应"模式相比,以市场检验为标志的公共服务改革大大降低了公共服务供给成本,提高了公共服务效率,改善了公共部门运行绩效,并为充分运用市场力量推动政府改革提供了新的机遇和动力。     

The translation and sedimentation of accounting reforms. A comparison of the UK,Austrian and Italian experiences

Since the late 1980s, there has been a significant and progressive movement away from the traditional Public Administration (PA) systems, in favour of NPM-type accounting tools and ideas inspired by the private sector. More recently, a new focus on governance systems, under the banner Public Governance (PG), has emerged. In this paper it is argued that reforms are not isolated events, but are embedded in more global discourses of modernisation and influenced by the institutional pressures present in a certain field at certain points in time. Using extensive document analysis in three countries with different administrative regimes (the UK, Italy and Austria), we examine public sector accounting and budgeting reforms and the underlying discourses put forward in order to support the change. We investigate the extent to which the actual content of the reforms and the discourses they are embedded within are connected over time; that is, whether, and to what degree, the reform “talk” matches the “decisions”. The research shows that in both the UK and in Italy there is consistency between the debates and the decided changes, although the dominant discourse in each country differs, while in Austria changes are decided gradually, and only after they have been announced well in advance in the political debate. We find that in all three countries the new ideas and concepts layer and sediment above the existing ones, rather than replace them. Although all three countries underwent similar accounting and budgeting reforms and relied on similar institutional discourses, each made its own specific translation of the ideas and concepts and is characterised by a specific formation of sedimentations. In addition, the findings suggest that, at present in the three countries, the PG discourse is used to supplement, rather than supplant, other prevailing discourses.     

ACHIEVING SOCIAL OBJECTIVES THROUGH PRIVATE TRANSFERS: A Review

Private interhousehold cash transfers are an important sourceof income in many developing countries. Among the countrieswhose experience is reviewed in the article, the proportionof all households receiving private transfers ranges from afifth to a half. The amounts received are large, particularlywhen compared with the incomes of the poorest households. Understanding more about these transfers is important for designingpolicy because, among other things, these remittances providesocial and economic benefits similar to those of public programs,such as unemployment insurance, pension support, educationalcredit, and health assistance. As such, private transfers maysupplement or overlap with public transfers, and, if privatedonors give less as public transfers increase, the effect ofpublic programs on beneficiaries would be less than originallyintended. Or the transfers may alter the distributional effectsof public programs: for again, if private donors give less aspublic transfers increase, they share in some of the benefitsof public programs.      

THE RELATIVE EFFICIENCY OF PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Aside from revenue mobilization, one of the arguments for allowingthe private sector to assume a larger role in the provisionof education is that it would increase efficiency, as administratorsbecome more responsive to the needs of students and their parents.But what is the evidence? Based on case studies that compareprivate and public secondary education in Colombia, the DominicanRepublic, the Philippines, Tanzania, and Thailand, private schoolstudents generally outperform public school students on standardizedmath and language tests. This finding holds even after holdingconstant for the fact that, on average, private school studentsin these countries come from more advantaged backgrounds thantheir public. school counterparts. In addition, preliminaryevidence shows that the unit costs of private schools are lowerthan those of public schools. Although these results cannot,in themselves, be used as arguments for massive privatization,they indicate that governments should reconsider policies thatrestrain private sector participation in education. Furtherresearch is needed to determine whether some teaching and administrativepractices in private schools are applicable to public schools.      

Is implementing the IPSASs an appropriate reform?

The purpose of this paper is to argue that the implementation of the accrual-based IPSASs in European-influenced developing and transition economy countries is not an appropriate reform unless preceded or accompanied by other, essentially managerial, reforms. The nature and extent of these prior reforms depend upon the political and cultural context and, not least, upon the power relationships within and between public institutions. The advocates of the application of the IPSASs appear not to recognize that for the reform to be effective it cannot be treated as simply a technical accounting reform, yet this is what is occurring. The issues identified in this paper are based upon the author’s practical experiences of working in many of these countries.     

LESSONS FROM THE SOUTHERN CONE POLICY REFORMS

This article assesses the design of stabilization and liberalizationprograms in the Abstract Southern Cone countries of Argentina,Chile, and Uruguay. With the exception of Chile, the reformswere not as widespread as some believed. Little trade liberalizationtook place in Argentina and Uruguay, although some of the antiexportbias was reduced by eliminating taxes on traditional exports.In all three countries, labor markets remained fairly highlyregulated, though it was easier to dismiss labor. In general,liberalization was gradual: even Chile's trade liberalizationspanned five years. The article also shows that the collapse of the three economiesin the early 1980s cannot be ascribed mainly to terms of tradeand interest rate shocks. The main causes of failure were poorlydesigned programs and poor implementation. These errors includedrestrictive wage legislation (Chile) or political instabilitycombined with a preoccupation with keeping unemployment as lowas possible (Argentina). Monetary policy to deal with growingfiscal deficits was inconsistent with the accompanying exchangerate policy (Argentina throughout its reform period and Uruguaytoward the end of its reforms). Financial deregulation was notmatched by appropriate supervision of the financial institutions. The article suggests several policy lessons for countries attemptingto resume growth and restore external balance through a combinationof liberalization and stabilization policies. First, it findsevidence that reductions in distortions produced efficiencygains in Chile and Uruguay even though Uruguay's reforms wereshort-lived. Second, the article shows that policy inconsistenciesundermined the credibility of the later stages of reform inall three countries, eventually producing a crisis. Third, itpresents data that call into question the use of exchange rate-basedstabilization, because of the slow convergence of domestic pricesand interest rates to international levels, which in turn canproduce unsustainably large capital movements. Fourth, the articlestresses the need for caution in financial deregulation.      

Privatization and Regulation of Transport Infrastructure in the 1990s

Although the link between improved infrastructure services andeconomic growth is uncertain, it is clear that reforms aimedat creating competition and regulating natural monopolies establishan environment conducive to private sector participation, incentivesfor companies to strive for efficiency savings that can ultimatelybe passed on to consumers, and greater provision of services(such as faster roll-out of infrastructure or innovative solutionsto service delivery for customers not connected to an existingnetwork). In determining the form that infrastructure restructuringmight undertake or the design of a regulatory agency, policymakerscan generally benefit from a review of the experiences of othercountries. A key element of any decisionmaking process shouldbe a review of how the various types of reform will affect theefficiency of the sector and whether they will increase privatefinancing of its significant investment needs.      

New development: Governmental accounting reforms in Latin America. The case of the municipality of Medellín,Colombia

ABSTRACT

Government accounting reforms in Medellín (Colombia) were promoted with the adoption of New Public Management principles. The reforms began by introducing accrual accounting, using this financial information for decision-making and, finally, adopting international standardization and comparability. This article shows how and why the government of Medellín modernized its public financial management systems to achieve transparency, accountability and efficiency.     

FINANCIAL MARKETS, PUBLIC POLICY, AND THE EAST ASIAN MIRACLE

Many factors contributed to the rapid growth of the economiesof East Asia in the past quarter century. This article examinesone important aspect of that growth—commonly referredto as the "East Asian miracle"—public policies affectingthe financial markets. East Asian governments intervened extensivelyin financial markets at all stages of their development. Whatsets their actions apart from those of other developing countriesthat have not fared as well? We do not have the informationto answer conclusively what effect particular actions had (thatrequires a counterfactual test of what growth would have beenwithout the particular intervention). But we can identify themarket failures the East Asian governments addressed, assesssome of the theoretical reasons why each policy might be growthenhancing, and provide some data attesting to the impacts ofthe policy. Several characteristics of financial sector interventionsin East Asia stand out: they incorporated design features thatimproved the chances of success and reduced opportunities forabuse; interventions that did not work out were dropped unhesitatingly;and policies were adapted to reflect changing economic conditions.      

The Evolution of the World Bank's Land Policy: Principles, Experience, and Future Challenges

This article examines the evolution of policy recommendationsconcerning rural land issues since the formulation of the WorldBank's "Land Reform Policy Paper" in 1975. That paper set outthree guiding principles: the desirability of owner-operatedfamily farms; the need for markets to permit land to be transferredto more productive users; and the importance of an egalitarianasset distribution. In the 25 years since that paper was published,these guiding principles have remained the same, but it is nowrecognized that communal tenure systems can be more cost-effectivethan formal title, that titling programs should be judged ontheir equity as well as their efficiency, that the potentialof land rental markets has often been severely underestimated,that land-sale markets enhance efficiency only if they are integratedinto a broader effort at developing rural factor markets, andthat land reform is more likely to result in a reduction ofpoverty if it harnesses (rather than undermines) the operationof land markets and is implemented in a decentralized fashion.Achieving land policies that incorporate these elements requiresa coherent legal and institutional framework together with greaterreliance on pilot programs to examine the applicability of interventionsunder local conditions.      

"新公共管理"与完善我国税务机构的内部管理

"新公共管理"给西方税务机构改革带来的变化为我国加强税务机构内部管理提供了经验。借鉴发达和新兴工业化国家改善税务机构的内部管理的经验,完善我国税务机构的内部管理可从组织机构、人力资源管理机制和绩效评估机制三方面着手。     

Formal Water Markets: Why, When, and How to Introduce Tradable Water Rights

In most countries the state owns the water resources and thehydraulic infrastructure, and public officials decide who getsthe water, how it is to be used, and how much will be chargedfor it. But costly inefficiencies in the supply and use of watersupport a shift from government provision to a market-basedapproach that is more effective and less wasteful. Markets can allow rapid changes in allocation in response tochanging demands for water and can stimulate investment andemployment as investors are assured of access to secure suppliesof water. Because of water's unique characteristics, such marketsdo not work everywhere; nor do they resolve all water-relatedissues. By designing appropriate water laws and regulationsand by strengthening private and public institutions to administerthem, formal water markets can effectively address rising demandsfor groundwater and for water found in rivers, lakes, and canals.Lessons from Chile's experience demonstrate that formal watermarkets can improve the economic efficiency of water use andstimulate investment.