Kirjahaku

This report examines the precise nature of the required institutional reforms needed to achieve higher sustained rates of growth and to make a dent in poverty reduction and provides a framework for their design and implementation. The more modest objective is to examine how the concepts of the new institutional economics are useful for analyzing and designing institutions and to evaluate how political economy concepts can be used to develop strategies for implementing institutional reforms. Employing some of these concepts, the report demonstrates that sound institutional reform can be technically and politically viable in the following key sectors: banking; capital markets and legal institutions; educational institutions; judicial reforms; and public administration.

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. Contents 1. Causes and Consequences of High Volatility in Developing Countries 2. The Role of Financial Insurance and Hedging 3. Dealing with Liquidity Shocks and the Procyclicality of Private Capital Flows 4. Dealing with Currency Risks 5. Dealing with Commodity Price, Terms of Trade, and Output Risks 6. Dealing with Natural Disaster Risks 7. Why Multilateral Development Bank Practices Are So Far from Their Potential 8. An Agenda Going Forward