Stand alone books

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Public Finance in China : Reform and Growth for a Harmonious Society

(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2008) Lou, Jiwei ; Wang, Shuilin

This publication focuses on public finance, development economics, and the Chinese economy. The government will focus on the public good aspects of education and training-compulsory education and some aspects of higher education and training. The publication encourages seven reforms including raising government expenditure on education to four percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and ensuring that all children actually receive nine years of basic education. Improving and widening access to medical care, especially for the rural population. The target is to extend the cooperative medical scheme to 80 percent of the rural population from the current coverage rate of just over 20 percent. China has sufficient fiscal resources to afford the level and type of spending commensurate with a harmonious society. This reallocation of resources can be done only gradually. It must go hand in hand with a better specification of roles and functions of the various levels of China and stronger mechanisms for accountability, to ensure that poorer local governments use the resources given to them.
Financing Cities : Fiscal Responsibility and Urban Infrastructure in Brazil, China, India, Poland and South Africa

(New Dehli : Sage Publications and World Bank, 2007) Clarke Annez, Patricia ; Peterson, George E.

This book, Financing cities, emphasized case studies on different topics to look at the interactions of a range of variables and factors and to see how they fit together. Rather than require each case to follow the same format, the authors have structured their papers around the issues that matter most from their perspective in addressing the topic in hand. The first part of this book presents case studies describing the framework established at the national level to promote urban infrastructure finance while ensuring fiscal discipline and reviewing recent experience as well as future challenges. The subjects covered include the impact of political and fiscal decentralization, limitations on borrowing, managing moral hazard, the role of the financial sector, the achieving of the right balance between stringent controls and encouragement of local governments taking responsibility for fiscal discipline coupled with market discipline. The cases featured include three of the world's largest decentralized nations; together the five countries featured in the conference account for nearly a third of the world's urban population. Part I includes case studies for each of the five countries featured in the conference: Brazil (Chapter 1), China (Chapter 2), India (Chapter 3), Poland (Chapter 4) and South Africa (Chapter 5). Part II then shifts from the frameworks for fiscal discipline to urban infrastructure investments and the strategies used to mobilize investment funding. Chapters 6 and 7 examine the financing strategies for urban infrastructure in Shanghai and Brazil respectively. The next two chapters focus on specialized intermediaries offering urban infrastructure finance in cities. One is a fully private venture in South Africa (Chapter 9) while the other, in Tamil Nadu, India (Chapter 8), is a spin-off of a government fund with minority private ownership. The final two chapters examine experiences with two other mechanisms for mobilizing funding for infrastructure investments from the private sector, land leasing and sales (Chapter 10) and private participation in infrastructure operations (Chapter 11).
East Asian Visions : Perspectives on Economic Development

(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2007) Gill, Indermit ; Huang, Yukon ; Kharas, Homi

East Asian Visions: Perspectives on Economic Development is a collection of essays by 17 eminent East Asians who represent a broad spectrum of backgrounds and experiences. All are senior policy makers, statesmen, or scholars who have either had to deal with or think through some of the most critical financial and developmental issues confronting their countries and the region. Collectively, 10 of them have, at some point in their careers, been at the head of key ministries and central banks; nearly a dozen have been academics and scholars of distinction; several have served as ambassadors to the West and bring a more global strategic perspective; and many have been influential policy advisers and decision makers in governments and international financial agencies. Their essays reflect individual experiences at critical economic junctures and are occasionally quite personal, not surprising since each author selected a topic of his or her own choosing. Given their backgrounds, they have chosen to write about the highly diverse country experiences of East Asia, covering rich, middle income, and poor countries, and they speculate on how their countries fit into a rapidly changing region and globalizing world. Four themes permeate these essays: explaining East Asia's growth and developmental success; the powerful forces of regional integration and building efficiency versus vulnerability; avoiding domestic disintegration given growing public intolerance of increasing inequities, pollution, and corruption; and where will East Asia find its next generation of leaders.
An East Asian Renaissance : Ideas for Economic Growth

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007) Gill, Indermit ; Kharas, Homi ; Bhattasali, Deepak ; Brahmbhatt, Milan ; Datt, Gaurav ; Haddad, Mona ; Mountfield, Edward ; Tatucu, Radu ; Vostroknutova, Ekaterina

The region has been transformed by these developments, changing from a set of countries that rapidly integrated with the world to one that is also aggressively exploiting the sources of dynamism that lie within Asia. But countries in East Asia now face the domestic side-effects of rapid growth driven by international integration: congestion, conflict, and corruption. The challenge now is to complement global and regional integration with domestic integration. This requires ensuring vibrant cities that are not only linked to the outside world but also well-integrated domestically, strengthening social cohesion and reducing inequality, and providing clean governments which efficiently reinvest the economic returns that accompany fast growth.
East Asian Finance : The Road to Robust Markets

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006) Ghosh, Swati R.

This study analyzes the key issues and constraints - in terms of efficiency, access and safety and soundness - faced by East Asian countries in developing their financial markets which are at different stages of development, drawing on global experience. The study takes stock of the initiatives being undertaken at the regional level to foster greater financial integration as a means of deepening and diversifying financial markets, and on the policy issues that need to be addressed at the domestic level to deepen and diversify financial markets and to actually benefit from the actions that are being taken at the regional level.
Connecting East Asia : A New Framework for Infrastructure

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005) Asian Development Bank ; World Bank ; Japan Bank for International Cooperation

Infrastructure development has made a major contribution to East Asia's enviable record on growth and poverty reduction. However, substantial new investments in infrastructure and service delivery improvements will be required to sustain progress in the future, and to address new challenges posed by urbanization, decentralization, and regional integration. At the same time, questions have often been raised about the impact of infrastructure on the environment and local communities, about waste through corruption in public spending and private contracts, and about the appropriate roles of the public and private sectors in infrastructure financing, ownership, and management. These questions are the motivation for this study by the Asian Development Bank, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, and the World Bank. The three agencies support infrastructure development through project financing and guarantees, as well as by assisting governments to put in place policies to improve public sector performance, and to attract private investment. Each agency will follow its own operational strategy in each country, but it is expected this new framework will enable taking a more coherent and consistent approach. By suggesting a "new framework" for infrastructure development in the region, Connecting East Asia presents an approach that will help avoid costly mistakes, and allow policy makers, development partners, nongovernmental organizations, and the public and private sectors to work together toward the successful provision of infrastructure. The report is organized around three main themes: inclusive development, coordination, and accountability and risk management.
Under New Ownership : Privatizing China's State-Owned Enterprises

(Washington, DC: World Bank and Stanford University Press, 2005) Yusuf, Shahid ; Nabeshima, Kaoru ; Perkins, Dwight H.

This publication is organized as follows: Chapter 1, discuses China's industrial system: where it is now, where it should be headed, and why. Chapter 2, contains reform in China. Chapter 3, discusses the accelerated change in enterprise ownership 1997-2003. Chapter 4, covers Chinese ownership reform in the East European mirror. Chapter 5, discusses assessing the effects of ownership reform in China. Chapter 6, considers making privatization work.
Global Change and East Asian Policy Initiatives

(Washington, DC: World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2004) Shahid, Yusuf ; Altaf, M. Anjum ; Nabeshima, Kaoru ; Shahid, Yusuf ; Altaf, M. Anjum ; Nabeshima, Kaoru

Many East Asian economies have grown briskly in the past few years. However, future development will depend on the quality and timeliness of regional and national policy actions. The policy agenda must address the problems that buffeted the region in the late 1990s-associated with the weakness of domestic institutions and policies in the context of globalization. These problems include financial shocks, rapid shifts in the competitiveness of major exports, changes in international production networking, and significant reconfiguration in the geographical composition of production systems that had provided the foundation for growth. Sustaining dynamism in East Asia requires policy initiatives that contain the risks from shocks and manage the ongoing shifts and changes in ways that enhance both the competitiveness of firms and the stability of the economies. This report provides specific policy responses that could be employed to navigate successfully through periods of economic, political, and technological turbulence. The book is a collection of studies by leading experts in such fields as corporate and political governance, economic policy, globalization, higher education, legal reform, regional integration, and social protection. The studies reflect the most current thinking and research on global, regional, and national policies of relevance to East Asian economies. It is an important resource for policymakers, researchers and students interested in East Asia.
The Microfinance Revolution : Volume 2. Lessons from Indonesia

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2002-05) Robinson, Marguerite S.

This book focuses on how the demand for microfinance can be met on a global scale. It documents the contributions of institutions and of people who have led the development of commercial finance for the poor, and it analyzes the principles on which the microfinance revolution is based. In sum, this work offers a detailed overview of the development of microfinance over the past 20 years; a global view of microfinance in the developing world (largely excluding Eastern Europe); a thesis on the future path of microfinance; a coherent theory about microfinance--why it works when so many other development interventions fail; detail on a number of important microfinance topics--such as informal moneylending and savings; an important study on, and lessons from Indonesia, with detailed analysis of Bank Rakyat Indonesia; and, brief studies of many other microfinance institutions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Corporate Governance and Enterprise Reform in China : Building the Institutions of Modern Markets

(Washington, DC: World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, 2002-03) Tenev, Stoyan ; Zhang, Chunlin ; Brefort, Loup

This book explores the short- to medium-term corporate governance issues that China is encountering during the course of corporation and ownership transformation of its enterprise sector. The study looks at companies participating in the two main forms of ownership diversification: listed companies and small and medium enterprises whose ownership structure is dominated by insiders. The focus is on the new mechanisms and stakeholders emerging during the process of ownership diversification and their role in corporate governance. Recommended priorities for action are based on the following guiding principles: 1) Corporate governance scandals in emerging and developed markets indicate that there is no perfect corporate governance model. An effective corporate governance system should be capable of identifying weaknesses before they develop into systemic problems. 2) The institutional mechanisms of corporate governance comprise a system that can employ alternative yet complementary instruments of control to effectuate changes in companies' behavior. Based on these principles, the following areas emerge as recommended priorities for policy action: a) alleviate the negative impact of dominant state ownership on market discipline and on the regulatory capacity of the state; b) building an institutional investor base; and c) strengthening the role of banks in corporate governance.