The Governor's Solution

Todd Moss

Reliance on natural resource revenues, particularly oil, is often associated with bad governance, corruption, and poverty. Worried about the effect of oil on Alaska, Governor Jay Hammond had a simple yet revolutionary idea: let citizens have a direct stake. The Governor's Solution features his firsthand account that describes, with brutal honesty and piercing humor, the birth of the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend, which has been paid to each resident every year since 1982.Thirty years later, Hammond's vision is still influencing oil policies throughout the world. This reader, part of the Center for Global Development's Oil-to-Cash initiative, includes recent scholarly work examining Alaska's experience and how other oil-rich societies, particularly Iraq, might apply some of the lessons. It is as a powerful reminder that the combination of new ideas and determined individuals can make a tremendous difference—even in issues as seemingly complex and intractable as fighting the oil curse.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286709
  • Publication Date: Nov 2012
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

The Transatlantic Economy 2006

Daniel S. Hamilton

One of the defining features of the global economic landscape over the past decade has been the increasing integration and cohesion of the transatlantic economy. Over the past few years the Center for Transatlantic Relations has offered a series of studies examining the changing nature of the transatlantic economy in a globalizing world. The Transatlantic Economy 2006 annual report offers the most up-to-date set of facts and figures describing the deep economic integration binding European nations to America's fifty states.

  • Imprint: Center for Transatlantic Relations SAIS
  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9780976643494
  • Publication Date: Jan 2007
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

Developing Countries and the Global Financial System

Stephany Griffith-Jones

This book presents the main papers and discussion points of the conference held by the Commonwealth Secretariat, the World Bank and the IMF in 2000. Policy-makers from developing countries considered a new design of international financial architecture appropriate to the 21st century.

  • Format: Hardback
  • ISBN: 9780850926743
  • Publication Date: Jan 2001
  • Availability: Temporarily out of stock: Usually despatched in 14-18 days

Issues in Monetary and Fiscal Policy in Small Developing States

Anthony Birchwood

This study examines how monetary and fiscal policies are implemented in Caribbean small states, tracing the differences and similarities in tax structure, current expenditure and current revenues. It shows the impact of monetary policy on inflation and the importance of exchange rate regimes to the effectiveness of monetary policy in the region.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849290616
  • Publication Date: Sep 2011
  • Availability: Temporarily out of stock: Usually despatched in 14-18 days

Assessment of Debt Restructuring Operations in Commonwealth Small States

Michele Robinson

This paper highlights the concerns of Commonwealth small states about unsustainable debt burdens and the emerging challenges to their overall debt sustainability. It offers key lessons learned from Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, and Seychelles.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849291354
  • Publication Date: May 2015
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

Overcoming Stagnation in Aid-Dependent Countries

Nicolas van de Walle

In this book, Nicolas Van de Walle identifies 26 countries that are extremely poor and grew little if at all in the 1990s. His sample excludes North Korea and countries where civil war explains some of their failure to grow (Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tajikistan and others). The 26 countries have limited infrastructure and human capital and the small size of their markets deter private savings and investment. Aid was meant to help overcome these problems, and these countries received a lot. Yet they have failed to grow. What is wrong? Is foreign aid a solution or part of the problem? What changes might make aid more effective? Given these countries require the financial and technical resources of the West, why haven't aid programs made a difference? Van de Walle blames their economic failure mostly on the venality and incompetence of their political leadership. He analyzes the contradictions and tensions faced by the aid community in poorly run countries, providing a sobering analysis of the perverse effects of aid where the politics is all wrong. Too often, resources provided by foreign aid keep the wrong government in office, and undermine adoption of economic as well as political reforms. Bad government combined with aid, in short, hurts poor countries – and particularly the poorest people in those countries. Despite good intentions, little progress has been made in implementing announced "reforms" of the aid business itself. A constituency for reform is lacking, in the donor countries and in the recipient countries, where those in power benefit from the status quo.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286013
  • Publication Date: Mar 2005
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

Africa's Private Sector

Vijaya Ramachandran

Why is business performance lagging in Africa? To provide answers, this volume focuses on the day-to-day problems that private sector managers and entrepreneurs there encounter. Through enterprise surveys conducted in several African countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, these businesspeople identify poor infrastructure—particularly the lack of a reliable source of power—as a huge constraint on private sector activity.Politics also plays a key role in limiting the success of African businesses. Many countries there have private sectors that are ethnically segmented or dominated by ethnic minorities or both. Segmented networks in already sparse economic environments limit competition, encourage an ambivalent attitude toward facilitating a good business environment, and constrain the growth of firms outside the dominant network. Consequently, Africa has yet to see the emergence of a broad-based business class. Africa's Private Sector identifies several solutions to address both the infrastructure and political economy constraints hampering business growth in Africa.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286280
  • Publication Date: Jan 2009
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

Beyond Lending

Guillermo Perry

When he began this book in early 2008, Guillermo Perry argued that developing countries remained highly vulnerable to external risks such as commodity price declines, capital flow reversals, and natural disasters. The economic crisis that has since ensued confirmed Perry's analysis. It has also made his proposal more important than ever: multilateral development banks (MDBs) should move beyond lending to provide innovative risk-management tools for developing countries to manage volatility. The risk that MDBs will fall into complacency as the short-term demand for traditional loans increases during the crisis should not deter innovations to ensure long-term stability.Contents1. Causes and Consequences of High Volatility in Developing Countries2. The Role of Financial Insurance and Hedging3. Dealing with Liquidity Shocks and the Procyclicality of Private Capital Flows4. Dealing with Currency Risks5. Dealing with Commodity Price, Terms of Trade, and Output Risks6. Dealing with Natural Disaster Risks7. Why Multilateral Development Bank Practices Are So Far from Their Potential8. An Agenda Going Forward

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286327
  • Publication Date: May 2009
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

Due Diligence

David Roodman

The idea that small loans can help poor families build businesses and exit poverty has blossomed into a global movement. The concept has captured the public imagination, drawn in billions of dollars, reached millions of customers, and garnered a Nobel Prize. Radical in its suggestion that the poor are creditworthy and conservative in its insistence on individual accountability, the idea has expanded beyond credit into savings, insurance, and money transfers, earning the name microfinance. But is it the boon so many think it is?Readers of David Roodman's openbook blog will immediately recognize his thorough, straightforward, and trenchant analysis. Due Diligence, written entirely in public with input from readers, probes the truth about microfinance to guide governments, foundations, investors, and private citizens who support financial services for poor people. In particular, it explains the need to deemphasize microcredit in favor of other financial services for the poor.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286488
  • Publication Date: Dec 2011
  • Availability: Temporarily out of stock: Usually despatched in 14-18 days

Issues in Monetary and Fiscal Policy in Small Developing States

T.K. Jayaraman

This study examines how monetary and fiscal policies are implemented in Pacific small states and suggests policy options that can be used by these countries.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849290623
  • Publication Date: Oct 2011
  • Availability: Temporarily out of stock: Usually despatched in 14-18 days

Making Trade in Services Supportive of Development in Commonwealth Small and Low-Income Countries

Patrick Macrory

This Economic Paper assesses new innovative measures in trade in service negotiations that reflect the vulnerabilities and challenges faced by developing countries. It outlines the approaches that can help small and low-income countries in a manner that is practical and supportive of their economic development.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849290708
  • Publication Date: Nov 2011
  • Availability: Temporarily out of stock: Usually despatched in 14-18 days

Key Issues in Natural Resource Taxation and Revenue Management in the Commonwealth

Daniel Wilde

This Economic Paper analyses key issues in natural resource taxation and revenue management and recommends policies that can improve countries' economic performance. The discussion draws on economic theory, empirical evidence and the work of the Commonwealth Secretariat.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849291606
  • Publication Date: Oct 2016
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

Results Not Receipts

Charles Kenny

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286976
  • Publication Date: Jun 2017
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

Business Guide to the World Trading System

This book provides an overview of achievements of the Uruguay Round and the legal system established by it, and explains the role of the World Trade Organization (WTO). A sequel to 'Business Guide to the Uruguay Round' (1995), this edition contains updates on new developments which have taken place since 1996.

  • Imprint: International Trade Centre UNCTAD/WTO and Commonwealth Secretariat
  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9780850926217
  • Publication Date: Jan 1999
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

Migration and Development

Wonderful Hope Khonje

This book contextualises migration and development to the peculiar vulnerabilities of small states. It includes case studies from small states in Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific that will help policy-makers to embrace migration as an inevitable phenomenon and devise policies that will maximise the benefits from migration at a minimal cost.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781849291330
  • Publication Date: Feb 2015
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

Rescuing the World Bank

Nancy Birdsall

The World Bank is assailed by critics on the left, right and center on the grounds it is not effective, not accountable, not democratic or legitimate, and most threatening of all, not relevant in a global economy where private capital, production, and ideas dominate. Yet the world needs a strong World Bank working with other international institutions to manage development and the related global challenges of the 21st century. Are the Bank's shortcomings exaggerated or potentially fatal? If potentially fatal, can this critical institution be rescued? Rescuing the World Bank explores the answers to these questions. The first part of the book, The Hardest Job in the World: Five Crucial Tasks for the New President of the World Bank, is a report by a Center for Global Development (CGD) Working Group delivered to Paul Wolfowitz on his first day in the office in June 2005. The second part comprises selected essays, many first presented at a CGD Symposium in the fall of 2005. The Working Group members and essay authors represent a rich array of experience and views. CGD president Nancy Birdsall was co-chair of the Working Group and selected and edited the essays. Her view that the Bank is a crucial global institution but potentially at risk is widely—but not universally—shared by the Working Group members and the essay authors. The provocative volume will be widely read and discussed by those who are actively grappling with how to strengthen the World Bank, by its many stakeholders, and by readers with a broad interest in development seeking a better understanding of this vital and complex institution as it struggles to adapt to the demands of the 21st century.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286112
  • Publication Date: Aug 2006
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

Cash on Delivery

Nancy Birdsall

Cash on Delivery (COD) Aid proposes a new approach to foreign assistance—one that links aid payments more directly to desired outcomes to promote accountability, responsibility, learning, and strengthening of local institutions.Using an example from education, this book outlines how COD Aid could work in practice. It offers guidance on the identification of measurable outcomes and mechanisms for verification and the management of a variety of risks. The authors provide practical advice, documents, term sheets, and other supporting material that donors and potential recipient governments can use as a basis for designing and implementing COD Aid in particular settings.It also shows how COD Aid could be applied to other sectors and includes guidance for assessing whether COD Aid is achieving its goals.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781933286365
  • Publication Date: Mar 2010
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5-7 Working Days

Financial Intermediation in Small Island Developing Economies

Maxwell J. Fry

This study examines the problems and policies for financial intermediation in small economies, including financial institutions, measures their efficiency and policy frame, and analyses the financial structure in the Bahamas, Barbados, Fiji, Hong Kong, Maldives, Papua New Guinea, St Lucia, Seychelles, Singapore, Solomon Islands and Western Samoa.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9780850922080
  • Publication Date: Sep 1981
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

Promoting Industrial Competitiveness in Developing Countries

Sanjaya Lall

As developing countries have started to open up their economies, concern about competitiveness has spread to their policy makers. Their relative competitiveness as production and investment sites has become a prime focus of development policy.

  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9780850926231
  • Publication Date: Oct 1999
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days

Small States in the Global Economy

David Peretz

A collection of the papers presented to the Commonwealth Secretariat/World Bank Joint Task Force conferences in 1999 and 2000. The joint report set out an agenda for future national, regional and international actions to address economic vulnerabilities of small states.

  • Format: Hardback
  • ISBN: 9780850926781
  • Publication Date: Jan 2001
  • Availability: In Stock - Despatched Within 5 Working Days