03. Journals

2,963 items available

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http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2210

These are journal articles published in World Bank journals as well as externally by World Bank authors.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 35

Empowering Cities: Good for Growth? Evidence from the People's Republic of China

(The MIT Press, 2018-03) Mukim, Megha ; Zhu, T. Juni

This paper utilizes a countrywide process of county-to-city upgrading in the 1990s to identify whether extending the powers of urban local governments leads to better firm outcomes. The paper hypothesizes that since local leaders in newly promoted cities have an incentive to utilize their new administrative remit to maximize gross domestic product and employment, there should be improvements in economic outcomes. In fact, aggregate firm-level outcomes do not necessarily improve after county-to-city graduation. However, state-owned enterprises perform better after graduation, with increased access to credit through state-owned banks as a possible explanation. Importantly, newly promoted cities with high capacity generally produce better aggregate firm outcomes compared with newly promoted cities with low capacity. The conclusions are twofold. First, relaxing credit constraints for firms could lead to large increases in their operations and employment. Second, increasing local government's administrative remit is not enough to lead to better firm and economic outcomes; local capacity is of paramount importance.
Privatization in Developing Countries: What Are the Lessons of Recent Experience?

(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2018-02-01) Estrin, Saul ; Pelletier, Adeline

This paper reviews the recent empirical evidence on privatization in developing countries, with particular emphasis on new areas of research such as the distributional impacts of privatization. Overall, the literature now reflects a more cautious and nuanced evaluation of privatization. Thus, private ownership alone is no longer argued to automatically generate economic gains in developing economies; pre-conditions (especially the regulatory infrastructure) and an appropriate process of privatization are important for attaining a positive impact. These comprise a list which is often challenging in developing countries: well-designed and sequenced reforms; the implementation of complementary policies; the creation of regulatory capacity; attention to poverty and social impacts; and strong public communication. Even so, the studies do identify the scope for efficiency-enhancing privatization that also promotes equity in developing countries.
Hayek, Local Information, and Commanding Heights: Decentralizing State-Owned Enterprises in China

(American Economic Association, 2017-08) Huang, Zhangkai ; Li, Lixing ; Ma, Guangrong ; Xu, Lixin Colin

Hayek (1945) argues that local information is key to understanding the efficiency of alternative economic systems and whether production should be centralized or decentralized. The Chinese experience of decentralizing SOEs confirms this insight: when the distance to the government is farther, the SOE is more likely to be decentralized, and this distance-decentralization link is more pronounced with higher communication costs and greater firm-performance heterogeneity. However, when the Chinese central government oversees SOEs in strategic industries, the distance-decentralization link is muted. We also consider alternative agency-cost-based explanations, and do not find much support.
Market Facilitation by Local Government and Firm Efficiency: Evidence from China

(Elsevier, 2017-02) Cull, Robert ; Xu, Lixin Colin ; Yang, Xi ; Zhou, Li-An ; Zhu, Tian

We use data from a large survey of Chinese firms to investigate whether local government efforts to facilitate market development improve firm efficiency. Both government provision of information about products, markets, and innovation and government assistance in arranging loans are positively associated with firm efficiency, and those private firms with weak access to and knowledge of financial, input, and product markets benefit most from such assistance. These patterns are robust across multiple estimation approaches. Our examination of the determinants of local government facilitation also suggests that it gravitates toward promoting efficiency, though there are also indications that rent-seeking may play a role. Our evidence is consistent with the notion that government facilitation can help some firms overcome market failures in the early stages of a country's private sector development. Though causality is difficult to establish, we argue that changing fiscal dynamics that forced local governments to become increasingly self-reliant in generating revenue, and a government promotion system based on local economic performance, were key motivating factors for market facilitation by local government officials.
Product Relatedness and Firm Exports in China

(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2015-09-29) Poncet, Sandra ; Starosta de Waldemar, Felipe

We propose the first evaluation using micro-level data of the gains from the consistency of activities with a local comparative advantage. Using firm-level data from Chinese customs over the 2000–6 period, we investigate the relationship between the export performance of firms and how their products relate to local comparative advantage. Our key indicator measures the density of the links between a product and the local product space. Hence, it combines information on the intrinsic relatedness of a good with information on the local pattern of specialization. Our results indicate that exports grow faster for goods that have denser links with those currently produced in the firm's locality. The density of links between products seems to yield export-enhancing spillovers. However, we show that this positive effect of product relatedness on export performance is mainly limited to ordinary trade activities and domestic firms. It is also stronger for more productive firms, suggesting that spillover diffusion may be hindered by insufficient absorptive capacity.
The Experience of Survival: Determinants of Export Survival in Lao PDR

(Elsevier, 2015-07-09) Stirbat, Liviu ; Record, Richard ; Nghardsaysone, Konesawang

This paper explores monthly, firm-level customs records from Laos in the period 2005–10. We analyze the role of two important and related determinants of export survival, experience, and networks, which are particularly relevant for developing countries. We go beyond previous studies by disaggregating contract terminations to consider the possibility of upgrades to superior products. Having prior experience with the export product and destination and strong networks of similar firms has a strong positive impact on chances of simple export survival. The likelihood of upgrading is boosted by destination experience but lowered by familiarity with the product.
Financial Structure and Economic Development : A Reassessment

(Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2013-09) Cull, Robert ; Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli ; Lin, Justin Yifu

In this article the authors use quantile regressions to assess the relationship between economic and financial development at each percentile of the distribution of economic development. Thus; the quantile regressions provide information on how the associations between economic development and both bank and securities market development change as countries grow richer.
Demographics and Development Policy

( 2011-04) Bloom, David E. ; Canning, David

By late 2011 there will be more than 7 billion people in the world, with 8 billion in 2025 and 9 billion before 2050. New technologies and institutions, and a lot of hard work have enabled us to avoid widespread Malthusian misery. Global income per capita has increased 150 percent since 1960, outpacing the growth of population. But we cannot be sure that incomes will continue to grow.
Demystifying Success : The New Structural Economics Approach

( 2011-04) Lin, Justin Yifu

It took a Scottish moral philosopher with no training in economics to set the course of modern economics and challenge researchers to answer what is arguably the most fundamental question in public policy, namely: what is the recipe for growth, job creation, and poverty reduction?
Beijing Consensus Or Washington Consensus : What Explains China's Economic Success?

( 2011-04) Yao, Yang

China's remarkable economic growth is often attributed to strong government intervention that can mobilize large amounts of resources to clear any bottleneck to growth or institutional change. This approach is often referred to as the Beijing Consensus (BC) as compared to the Washington Consensus (WC): the former being a model of authoritarianism and heavy state involvement in the economy, the latter a model of neoliberal and market-oriented doctrines. But these characterizations are inaccurate.