Better Urban Services: Finding the Right IncentivesThe World Bank plays an active role through lending operations and analytical work in support of countries' efforts to address population issues. This study examines those issues in Asia, home to half the world's population, to provide a comparative analysis from a policy perspective. The book is divided into three parts. The first provides the historical context for demographic policies, including a graphic framework based on data from past population growth patterns and fertility rates. The second examines the cost, financing, and organization of family planning programs. The final part assesses population prospects, including the sensitivity of future population sizes to sharp declines in fertility rates, and the implications of growth for the environment, the delivery of social services, employment, and the demand for urban infrastructure. |
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accountability addressed administrative aid and lending allocation approach appropriate Argentina assigned Bank's behavior benefit jurisdiction benefit taxes borrowers Brazil budget capacity central government central regulation cities Colombia constituents constraints costs country strategy decentralization decisionmaking developing countries distributional economic Ecuador effectively entities ernment example expenditure external aid financing fiscal framework functional responsibilities funds G-5 countries impact implications impose improve incentives income increasingly Indonesia infrastructure institutional arrangements intergovernmental relations intergovernmental transfers investment issues Jakarta Kenya levels of government loan local governments macroeconomic mayors MCIS ment Mexico ministries Morocco Municipal Development Project municipal governments municipal services Nigeria operations organization organizational percent performance perverse incentives political population primary education private firms private sector problems programs property tax public sector reform revenue role specific structure technical assistance tion tional typically urban lending urban service delivery user charges value added tax World Bank
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Page 16 - ... and Public Services Bill Dillinger Decentralization - the transfer of political power to local units of government is a widespread phenomenon. Of the seventy-five developing and transitional economies with populations of more than 5 million, all but twelve have begun to decentralize political power. The form and extent of decentralization vary. In parts of Africa national governments are creating local political entities in territories that were formerly administered by the central government....
Page 33 - ... based on the EMBI Global total country return indices compiled by JP Morgan. The four global factors are global interest rates, oil prices, gold prices and commodity prices. The sectoral factors are weekly returns based on the MSCI Industrial Sector Indices. The cross-country factors are returns for France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States in the asset market corresponding to the left-hand variable. The GDP data used as the denominator for many of these statistics are...
Page 2 - Out of 75 developing and transitional countries with populations greater than 5 million, all but 12 claim to have embarked on some form of transfer of political power to local units of government
Page 32 - ... derived from the classic formulation of public economics, which assigns to the central government the functions of macroeconomic management and income redistribution and foresees a role for local governments only in the context of resource allocation (Musgrave and Musgrave 1984). According to this view, "discrete public services should be assigned to the level of government whose boundaries incorporate the affected beneficiaries. That level of government should be assigned a corresponding pricing...
Page 60 - ... stability and creditworthy local governments do not exist. With the private sector unwilling to lend and governments unwilling to function as prudent financial intermediaries, many countries have turned to organizational hybrids. Under the general rubric of municipal credit institutions, these hybrids attempt to combine the commercial incentives of private lenders with the financial backing of central governments to mobilize savings. Municipal credit institutions take a variety of forms, including...
Page 13 - Sub-Saharan Africa East Asia South Asia Europe, Middle East, and North Africa Latin America...
Page 80 - The theory of liberal democracy was based on the presumption that active citizens would elect and hold accountable individual representatives who would, in turn, produce substantively superior decisions. Contemporary theories of democracy place the burden of consent on party elites and professional politicians (sporadically subject to electoral approval) who agree among themselves that they will compete among themselves in such a way that those who win greater electoral support will exercise their...
Page 32 - In this respect, local politics can approximate the efficiencies of a market in the allocation of local public services by "pricing" municipal services and relying on the local political process and household mobility to clear the market.
Page 12 - At least 170 million people in urban areas lack a source of potable water near their homes, and in many cases, the water that is supplied to those who have access is polluted.
Page 4 - Clarity in the division of responsibilities for the delivery of services between the private and public sector is an essential condition of any reform in the structure of urban service delivery. Inefficient public sector monopolies are widely blamed for the ineffective infrastructure provision. What emerges is the necessity of a privatepublic partnership where the guiding principal is to allocate the management and ownership of assets based on the comparative advantages of...