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Infrastructure plays a key role in fostering growth and productivity and has been linked to improved earnings, health, and education levels for the poor. Yet Latin America is currently faced with a dangerous combination of relatively low public and private infrastructure investment. Those investment levels must increase, and it can be done. If Latin American and Caribbean governments are to increase infrastructure investment in politically feasible ways, it is critical that they learn from experience and have an accurate idea of future impacts. This book contributes to this aim by producing what is arguably the most comprehensive privatization impact analysis in the region to date, drawing on an extremely comprehensive dataset.

It is by now a trite commonplace that we live in an increasingly integrated global economy, in which the barriers to the free movement of goods and capital, though not labor, are rapidly disappearing as a result of both policy reforms and the progress of technology in transport and communications. The rhetoric as well as the substance of national economic policy is now preoccupied with the problem of how each country can hope to survive and prosper in a world where capital controls and trade restrictions are off the agenda. Is the simple laissez-faire principle of simply doing nothing correct, or is there anything an activist government might usefully strive to accomplish? With the global pool of capital at any instant restlessly searching for the highest return, regardless of borders, a popular prescription has come to be the provision of public infrastructure and the training and education of the labor force. With these measures the nation can attempt to secure for itself a higher share of the global capital stock and thus ensure for itself higher wages and better quality jobs for its own labor force.

The dissertation, "Networks, Deregulation, and Risk: The Politics of Critical Infrastructure Protection," engages post-9/11 debates over the role of public policy and novel technologies in crafting and maintaining resilient infrastructure networks against the threat of terrorism. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, networks of communication, electric power, and transportation (as well as others) became sites of anxiety, debate, and, ultimately, intervention. The dissertation examines three separate infrastructures--the postal system, freight rail transportation, and the electric power grid--and considers the ways in which new regulations and technologies of control are introduced in an effort to counter the presumed disruptive impacts of terrorism. The study follows two related lines of inquiry: First, it examines the relationship between deregulation--the selective and incomplete restructuring of infrastructure regulation in deference to the market--and infrastructure vulnerability; Second, it considers how after 9/11 a cross-section of actors from inside and outside the sphere of traditional national security policymaking intervene in defining the terms on which critical infrastructure protection unfolds. The dissertation argues that deregulation, despite its other merits, creates new forms of infrastructure vulnerability. Critically, the partial deregulation of price-and-entry controls over infrastructure operations transformed the architecture of these networks in ways that make infrastructures both more efficient and more vulnerable to large-scale failure. By foregrounding the role of policy and law in shaping infrastructure networks, the dissertation demonstrates how previous regulatory regimes provided a hedge against large-scale failure and how deregulation, unintentionally, conspired to create networks beset by vulnerabilities. Additionally, the dissertation highlights the surprising conclusion that in the aftermath of 9/11 the perceived risk of terrorism ultimately contributes to the democratization of infrastructure governance. Drawing from the work of Ulrich Beck and notions of securitization, the dissertation examines how risk serves as a resource for otherwise marginalized interest groups to open infrastructure governance to a range of voices. In the reviewed cases, risk does not serve to support the suspension or diminution of democratic practices, but on the contrary enlivens particular aspects of practices of democracy

In this article, financial infrastructures increase the efficiency of the banking sector: they reduce the market power of financial intermediaries (stemming from transaction costs and horizontal spatial differentiation), reduce the cost of capital, increase the number of depositors and the total amount of savings collected by banks. These factors increase the growth rate and may allow countries to escape from a poverty trap. On the other hand, taxation finances these infrastructures and reduces the return on capital after tax. An optimal level of financial infrastructure maximising growth or an aggregate well-being measure is assessed. ; International audience ; In this article, financial infrastructures increase the efficiency of the banking sector: they reduce the market power of financial intermediaries (stemming from transaction costs and horizontal spatial differentiation), reduce the cost of capital, increase the number of depositors and the total amount of savings collected by banks. These factors increase the growth rate and may allow countries to escape from a poverty trap. On the other hand, taxation finances these infrastructures and reduces the return on capital after tax. An optimal level of financial infrastructure maximising growth or an aggregate well-being measure is assessed. ; Dans cet article, les infrastructures financières augmentent l'efficacité du secteur bancaire: elles diminuent le pouvoir de marché des intermédiaires financiers (provenant de coûts de transactions et d'une différentiation spatiale horizontale), elles diminuent le coût du capital, augmentent le nombre de déposants et le montant total de l'épargne collectée par les banques. Ces facteurs augmentent le taux de croissance et peuvent permettre à des pays de sortir d'un piège à pauvreté. En revanche, la fiscalité finance ces infrastructures et diminue la rentabilité après impôt du capital. On évalue un niveau optimal d'infrastructures financières maximisant la croissance ou une mesure du bien-être agrégé.

New information and communication technologies unquestionably brought about enormous changes that resulted in an ever-increasing networked society. Indeed, there is no area in the social and economic world which is unaffected by the recent advances. In response to these changes scientists from numerous disciplines teamed up in 1997 to lay a foundation for a common theory of networks. The objective was to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms behind social, economic, technical and other kinds of networks in order to develop a unified theory of networks. Such a theory would then guide public and private decisions concerning the planning, operations and controlling of all kinds of networks. The contributions in this book represent the first steps toward this ambitious goal

Institutional bureaucracy is an infrastructure and a social overhead capital (SOC). SOC covers social set values expressed with confidence, norms and networks. Research using SOC index as an evidence of institutional behavior. The purpose of this research is to show that the SOC index has significant influence on investment decisions and vice versa on national product. Standard monetary transmission instruments such as interest rates, exchange rates, prices of financial assets, and base money as evidence of inflation and bank loans, as long as SOC index as explanatory (independent) variables regressed to GDP, GRDP or investment as the dependent variable. The regression results indicate a low SOC index showing the inability of economies to provide a conducive response of monetary transmission channel. Therefore, the research results imply that the government must set a high priority in solving the problem of slow institutional response to the earning opportunities. ; peer-reviewed

Introduction, State of the Art and Definitions -- Infrastructural Integration in the 19th Century -- Infrastructural Integration in the 20th Century -- Relationship Between Organisational Structures, Political Processes and Agreed Standards -- Political and Socio-economic Theories and International Integration Infrastructures -- Conclusion -- Glossary -- Literature.