uncertainty economic reforms and private investment in the middle east and north africa during the 1980s and the 1990s private investment in the middle east and north africa mena has on average shown a decreasing or stagnant trend this contrasts with the situation of the asian economies where private investment has always been more dynamic in this paper it is empirically shown for a panel of 39 developing economies among which four mena countries that in addition to the traditional determinants of investment such as the growth anticipations and the real interest rate government policies explain mena s low investment rate insufficient structural reforms which have most of the time led to poor financial development and deficient trade openness have been a crucial factor for the deficit in private capital formation the economic uncertainties of the region have represented another factor of the firm s decisions not to invest these uncertainties have consisted of the external debt burden and various measures of volatility

policy specific information and informal agenda power in gilligan and krehbiel s models of procedural choice in legislatures a committee exerts costly effort to acquire private information about an unknown state of the world subsequent work on expertise delegation and lobbying has largely followed this approach in contrast we develop a model of information as policy valence we use our model to analyze a procedural choice game focusing on the effect of transferability i e the extent to which information acquired to implement one policy option can be used to implement a different policy option we find that when information is transferable as in gilligan and krehbiel s models closed rules can induce committee specialization however when information is policy specific open rules are actually superior for inducing specialization the reason for this surprising result is that a committee lacking formal agenda power has a greater incentive to exercise informal agenda power by exerting costly effort to generate high valence legislation

active and passive waste in government spending evidence from a policy experiment we propose a distinction between active and passive waste as determinants of the cost of public services active waste entails utility for the public decision maker whereas passive waste does not we analyze purchases of standardized goods by italian public bodies and exploit a policy experiment associated with a national procurement agency we find that i some public bodies pay systematically more than others for equivalent goods ii differences are correlated with governance structure iii the variation in prices is principally due to variation in passive rather than active waste and iv passive waste accounts for 83 percent of total estimated waste

relative effects of public versus private investment spending on economic efficiency and growth in developing countries this study investigates the initial and long run effects of public investment expenditure on economic growth especially as compared with private investment annual data over 1970 90 for 48 developing countries form the basis of the empirical analysis our findings suggest that infrastructural public investment facilitates private investment especially in the long run it also promotes economic growth and efficiency whereas non infrastructural investment does the reverse also long term effects of public investment tend to be much more positive than short term ones on growth efficiency and private investments

resource rights and markets in a general equilibrium model of production rights to a free resource lead to distributional deadweight losses in partial equilibrium the present paper examines related distortions in a general equilibrium model of production with output prices constant for the small open economy the free resource can result in lower output than a market with weak substitution in the other sector the free resource also leads to a convex production frontier implying a price increase lowers output in the sector regarding policy an import tariff export subsidy or price support would lower sector output these general equilibrium distortions increase the incentives to favor resource markets over rights

a test of relative efficacy of tax expenditures and direct expenditures abstract this paper uses neo classical investment theory and time series data for pakistan s manufacturing sector to test the relative efficacy of tax expenditure and direct expenditure to boost private non residential investment the result shows that the tax policy through cost of capital and expenditure policy through public investment are important determinants of private investment it is argued that although both tax and expenditure policies are successful the tax expenditure depreciation allowances is more effective than direct expenditure this paper also argues that the economic estimates of tax expenditure are very high implying that most of the benefits of tax expenditure go to those investors who would have invested even in the absence of these concessions

private irrigation investment in colombia effects of violence macroeconomic policy and environmental conditions abstract this paper identifies and estimates the effects of several determinants on private investment in irrigation in colombia it attempts to quantify macroeconomic policy environment and violence variables that have been identified in previous studies as significantly affecting investment in agriculture in general and in irrigation in particular variables such as violence climate and governmental price and credit policies are used to explain changes in private investment in irrigation across regions and over time violence negatively affects private investment climate affects the investment such that in regions with favorable climate conditions investment in irrigation is less attractive and appropriate government crop price and credit policies promote investment in irrigation

groundwater focusing on the real issue most studies of the welfare economics of groundwater have focused mainly on the dichotomy between optimal control of groundwater use and no control at all this article argues that under circumstances that generally prevail in semiarid zones assigning property rights to groundwater and permitting the market to determine the allocation of water use can lead to a second best solution an argument is made that if potential users would be allowed to coase bargain with incumbent users on the issuance of new groundwater rights the second best solution is elevated to a pareto optimal solution this article is also a tale of two states water law and performance in new mexico and arizona

correcting externalities through taxes on subsidies to related goods abstract optimal corrective taxation is considered in the presence of externalities in cases where only related goods i e complements to or substitutes for externality creating goods can be taxed in the context of identical individuals and separable externalities taxing and subsidizing complements and substitutes to externalities are analyzed first the circumstances under which it is optimal to operate on one market only for a related good are examined second cases are identified where optimality requires taxes on substitutes for or subsidies to complements to a good which generates negative externalities

interest rates and investment in east asia an empirical evaluation of various financial liberalisation hypotheses the article attempts to shed light on the appropriate interest rate policy in the process of economic development to this end we examine whether higher interest rates lead to higher investment and growth in four east asian countries we find that the investment rate went up with real interest rates up to 9 per cent in all four countries but started declining at still higher interest rates in two of the countries further a banking crisis occurred in each of the three countries for which the real interest rates exceeded 9 per cent this evidence rejects the neo structuralist argument nor does it support unbridled financial liberalisation yet it provides only limited support to stiglitz s case for mild financial repression real interest rates near zero since reducing real interest rates from say 6 to 3 or 0 per cent would have reduced investment the optimum policy seems to be closest to mckinnon s restrained financial liberalisation policy that is liberalisation with a moderate upper lim

incomplete ownership rent dissipation and the return to related investments i introduction when ownership rights to a resource are costless to enforce trades occur and an equilibrium price emerges in such cases it is a price and a transfer of wealth from one agent to another that rations use of the resource absent ownership no price is charged and use is rationed by a transaction cost acquiring a barrel of oil or an acre foot of water from a shared reservoir is a transaction a resource in the common domain is transformed into property by the act of lifting it to the surface where ownership can be enforced the relevant transaction cost in this case is the cost of pumping in a fishery the relevant transaction cost is the cost of locating and capturing a portion of the unowned stock the marginal transaction cost limits each individual s use and accomplishes the necessary task of equating demand to the resource s supply users of the resource are in equilibrium when this marginal transaction cost equals the resource s marginal value the transaction cost also eliminates all or part of the rent the resource would earn if owned however and the size of this loss depends on the relationship between average transaction cost and the resource s marginal value this suggests that the amount of rent an unowned resource will yield in equilibrium after netting out relevant costs depends on the shape of the cost function for acquiring it if marginal cost is much greater than average cost as in cases where marginal cost is steeply rising the equilibrium rent will be relatively large 1 while the shape of the cost function depends on the nature of the resource it is not immutable for example it can be altered by imposing constraints on the inputs or the technology used it follows that users of a resource would benefit collectively if the technology or inputs used were constrained in a way that causes the marginal cost of obtaining it to rise steeply the optimal choice of such constraints is a well formulated second best policy problem this specification of the problem is incomplete however because the intensity of competition for the shared resource can also be changed by actions that affect it only indirectly an innovation or investment that lowers the individual s cost of acquiring it for example by reducing the price of an input used has this effect so does an action that raises the resource s marginal value product possibly by affecting the price or availability of a substitute such actions increase competition for the shared resource and raise the equilibrium cost of actions taken to acquire it in this sense the rent dissipation that is normally thought to characterize competition for shared resources can spread to related actions or investments both of these considerations are pursued in what follows second best policy toward a shared resource is examined by considering regulations that can control some but not all of the inputs needed to acquire it it is shown that the optimal input constraint and the fraction of potential rent such a policy can capture depend on two determinants the elasticity of substitution between and relative price of regulated and unregulated inputs it is also shown that competition for the shared resource can eliminate all or part of the return to related actions i e actions that result in a shift in the relevant private cost or benefit function the size of such losses depends in a simple way on the elasticities of relevant cost and benefit functions these additional losses can occur even in cases where direct competition causes complete rent dissipation as a result the loss that results from free access can exceed the rent the resource would earn in a complete markets equilibrium this phenomenon termed excess dissipation is illustrated with a number of examples investments that reduce the percolation of groundwater back into a common aquifer or expenditures to prevent fish from escaping from a net and returning to the natural population during the process of capture are shown to have this effect

internal funds and corporate investment in india abstract several economists have argued that capital markets in less developed countries are fragmented fragmented capital markets retard the efficient allocation of resources and force business firms to rely on internal sources of funds using firm level data the authors examine the importance of the accelerator internal funds and depreciation for investment by manufacturing firms in india the results indicate that internal funds and depreciation have significant explanatory power in a sales accelerator model of investment and that there exists heterogeneity among firms in the link between internal funds and investment in particular internal funds are relatively more important for large firms and firms that produce luxury goods

the structure of a contract and the theory of a non exclusive resource the process of arriving at a useful concept of analysis is not only slow and painful but also may go astray and attain nothing useful someone begins with one example or observation followed by a theory which is intuitively plausible a theoretical term associated with a vague concept is coined examples of a seemingly different type emerge which call for another theory the process goes on as examples and theories continue to accumulate the different categories under the same heading of analysis serve only to confuse and each associated theory becomes ad hoc such has been the fate of the concept of externality a more useful approach i think is via contractual conditions the example chosen for illustration is marine fisheries where the fishing right is taken

models of financially repressed developing economies abstract the past decade has witnessed an explosion of research on financial sector models of financially repressed developing economies for the most part financial repression is interpreted to be the technique of holding interest rates particularly deposit rates of interest below their free market equilibrium levels the recent spate of activity in this field was produced by the simultaneous publication in 1973 of books by mckinnon and shaw both authors demonstrate how economic theory can be applied to the analysis of the effects of financial conditions on investment and the real rate of economic growth since 1973 models of financially repressed developing economies have been formalized mathematically extended to open economies in order to analyse exchange rate policies and tested empirically this paper presents a critical survey of the major contributions to the literature in this field since 1973

modeling private investment in egypt abstract this paper presents an empirical model of private investment that takes into account certain features of a developing economy such as the oligopolistic structure of markets putty clay technology the inelastic supply of non traded capital goods and financial repression the model is tested on egyptian data using error correction and cointegration the results for egypt indicate that at the macroeconomic level private investment depends on mark ups internal financing demand and the cost of investment goods defined not as the interest rate but as the outcome of the interaction of supply and demand in the market for capital goods the effects of government policy on private investment are mixed with some evidence of crowding out in credit markets and of crowding in as a result of government investment in infrastructure

does financial liberalization really improve private investment in developing countries assuming that liquidity constraints exist in most developing countries the majority of analysts believe that increasing real interest rates will raise the volume of lending and hence private investment the author focusing on the demand for capital goods argues that the positive effect on the domestic credit market may be offset by the negative effect of a portfolio shift from capital goods and public bonds into monetary assets the author also demonstrates that a policy of financial liberalization could increase the public sector s demand for domestic credit thus limiting the funds available to the private sector this crowding out does not result from a change in the government s behavior but from a shift in the portfolio of private agents higher demand for bank deposits reduces the private sector s willingness to hold government bonds so the public sector must finance a given budget deficit with more domestic credit simulations for argentina for 1961 1982 suggest that the low response of private investors to changes in interest rate policy in those 20 years was attributable not to the low values of interest elasticities but to the interaction of the mechanisms allowed for in the model which tends to neutralize the impact of such policies the author concludes that the effect of changes in interest rate policy on the demand for capital goods is weak in argentina and might affect the quality of private investment more than its quantity

determinants of private investment in developing countries this paper examines a modified version of the flexible accelerator theory of investment with particular reference to developing countries the empirical results for five countries tend to confirm that government investment the change in bank credit to the private sector and capital inflow to the private sector play important roles in determining private investment the contributory effect and the crowding out effect of government investment are assessed within the context of a recursive model

politics and administration this paper develops a theory of the eectiveness of government programs in the model a bureaucrat chooses a mechanism for assigning a good such as a license or a benet payment to a client of uncertain qualications the mechanism uses a means test to verify the client s eligibility a politician who values the payos of a subset of client types exercises oversight by designating the resources available for means testing and the population of clients that can be served the model makes predictions about common administrative pathologies including inecient and politicized distribution of resources program errors and backlogs when the politician favors marginally qualied clients programs will tend to be universal with low per capita spending and high error rates when the politician favors highly qualied clients programs have smaller client populations higher per capita spending and lower error rates notably the bureaucrat can only use discriminatory testing in the latter case and programs with larger budgets do not spend more per client

analysing disequilibrium interest rate systems in developing countries abstract under equilibrium conditions monetary policy measures to raise institutional interest rates are contractionary when interest rates are held below their free market equilibrium levels however an increase can be expansionary higher institutional interest rates may deter savings in the form of unproductive inflation hedges and encourage savings in the form of financial claims issued to finance productive investment in most developing countries money is the predominant financial repository of savings and bank loans are a major source of investible funds hence attention is focused here on models which analyse the effects of binding interest rate ceilings on financial intermediation empirical evidence reported in this paper is consistent with the view that binding institutional interest rate ceilings can have a substantial growth reducing impact

contracting problems and regulation the case of the fishery the inefficiencies of common property fisheries are of continuing concern to economists the early work by scott gordon 1954 and anthony scott 1955 outlined the problem and later studies by james crutchfield and giulio pontecorvo 1969 and frederick bell 1972 provided empirical estimates of the losses that result those studies were followed by the dynamic models of colin clark 1976 and james quirk and vernon smith 1970 of optimal harvest rates and the use of corrective taxes or quotas to achieve them but in spite of a large and growing literature and the persuasiveness of the outlined efficiency criteria most fisheries retain common property aspects with overcapitalization and excessive labor input why those conditions persist and the failure of the regulatory response to them are the issues addressed in this paper we examine a number of fisheries but focus on the texas shrimp industry which is one of the nation s most valuable fisheries for a single species and which shares the common property characteristics observed elsewhere it is considered overcapitalized and catch per unit of effort is falling 2 examination of the fishery reveals the many margins along which rent dissipation occurs and the nature of the regulations necessary for controlling fishing effort to avoid those losses the regulatory environment in texas is complicated by conflict within the fishery between inshore and offshore fishermen the latter assert that bay shrimping reduces the number of shrimp that successfully migrate to the gulf the inshore fishery is highlighted by another issue the recent resettlement of some 30 45 000 vietnamese refugees including many fishermen along the texas coast marine advisory service paul starr their entry has been met by hostility and violence from existing shrimpers who recognize that they are in an environment characterized by the absence of property rights bay shrimpers have lobbied the texas legislature for broad limits on new entrants yet ironically the sale of additional boats by individual shrimpers to the vietnamese has facilitated entry of the refugees into the fishery regulations in the texas shrimp and other fisheries are incomplete leaving many options for rent dissipation uncontrolled because of high contracting costs among fishermen and political factors that mold government actions contracting costs are high among heterogeneous fishermen who vary principally with regard to fishing skill 3 montana state university and texas a m university respectively we benefitted from comments by terry anderson raymond c battalio gardner brown oscar burt micha gisser wade griffin john r moroney anthony d scott peter temin and participants in workshops at texas a m university and the university of washington research assistance was provided by scott barnhart and phil mizzi funding was provided by sea grant texas a m university throughout this paper we use the terms common property and open access interchangeably here the terms describe a situation where no property rights group or individual exist s for the resource 2catch per unit of effort in the inshore texas gulf and federal gulf waters is presented for 1963 77 by w l griffin c g tydlacka and w e grant they show catch per unit of effort generally falling in inshore and offshore waters while catch per unit of effort fluctuates from year to year it falls from approximately 360 kg shrimp per unit of effort to 220 kg from 1963 to 1977 the common property nature of the fishery is reflected in the following statistics since 1975 the number of vessels has grown by 23 percent nelson swartz for fish houses the record of entry is similar between 1970 a d 1977 the number of firms grew from 259 to 287 though during that period many left the industry as others entered the number of fish houses was calculated from license data supplied by the texas parks and wildlife department the record of entry by fish houses suggests that monopsony as discussed by colin clark and gordon munro is absent in the fishery 3there may be minor differences in labor leisure choices and capital but our statistical evidence and discussions with fishermen indicate that catch variations are largely due to skill government regulations in the texas bays restrict capital and our empirical evidence shows boats to be relatively homogeneous

private investment and democracy in latin america abstract this paper argues that the deterioration of latin american private investment in the 1980s may have been largely due to debt difficulties and not the concurrent wave of democratization after reviewing why more political systems may actually be conducive to investment we test an investment function for seven countries over 1973 1986 that includes traditional economic factors two debt measures and several political variables including measures of democracy worker power international monetary fund support and risk the results are quite congenial for our hypothesis under several reasonable alternative specifications for the economic determinants our democracy measure is positively signed and significant

financial determinants of domestic investment in sub saharan africa evidence from panel data abstract this study investigates the effects of financial development on domestic investment in a sample of 30 sub saharan african countries it is based on a dynamic serial correlation investment model including various indicators of financial development controlling for country specific fixed effects and nonfinancial factors of investment the results indicate a positive relationship between domestic investment total investment and private investment and various indicators of financial development higher financial development leads to higher future levels of investment implying a potent long run effect of financial development on domestic investment the findings imply that financial development can stimulate economic growth through capital accumulation