Suchergebnisse

The advantages of using municipal bonds to finance urban infrastructure are increasingly evident to policymakers in emerging economies, some of whom are undertaking efforts to accelerate the development of municipal bond markets in their countries. Many of these efforts use the strengths of the U.S. municipal market as a guide to suggest the kinds of market characteristics necessary to attract issuers as well as investors to the marketplace. Features of the U.S. market are often difficult to recreate in these countries in the short run, but policymakers are using a variety of innovative techniques to approximate essential market characteristics. This article reviews these efforts in four emerging economies: Indonesia, the Philippines, Poland, and South Africa.

Analyzes activities of public authorities, finding that fund-raising, rather than management, abilities account for their continuing popularity; US.

Decentralization of the development budget process in Indonesia has been a high priority of official reform efforts for over fifteen years, but in many respects the process remains highly centralized. This article describes the forces that helped shape this centralized process, in which central planners traditionally have had a degree of influence over budgeting that is unusual in the developing world. Efforts to help local officials play a more meaningful role in this process are reviewed, including innovative training programs introduced recently in response to enduring problems affecting local level participation. Although these recent efforts appear to be productive, government reformers recognize that meaningful decentralization over the longer term will be difficult to achieve without more fundamental changes in policies, procedures, and attitudes at the central level of government.

State pension fund managers appear to be under increasing pressure to promote social, ethical, or economic development goals with at least some of their investments. This article offers a conceptual framework for considering socioeconomic investing by these funds, and uses it in a national survey of state pension fund investment practices. True "social" investing, involving the expected sacrifice of market average rates of return for social or ethical goals, appears to be much less widespread than expected. However, the survey also suggests that policies and procedures designed to insure the prudence and accountability of fund managers with regard to socioeconomic investing may not be in place in many states.

Alternativ zu staatlich-privaten Partnerschaften können sich öffentlich-rechtliche Kommunen über die Ausgabe von Schuldverschreibungen Kapital beschaffen, um damit ihre Projekte und Aufgaben finanzieren zu können. Dies wird manchmal als ein geeigneterer - da billigerer - Weg gesehen als das Eingehen von Partnerschaften; zugleich behält der Staat eine bessere Kontrolle über seine Vorhaben und Dienstleistungen. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird analysiert, ob und welche Vorteile lokale Behörden bei der Ausgabe von Schuldverschreibungen zur Finanzierung ihrer infrastrukturellen Aufgaben haben. Zum Vergleich werden auch die Erfahrungen anderer Länder herangezogen, die ähnlich vorgegangen sind. Der Bedarf und die Chancen eines aktiven kommunalen Wertpapiermarktes werden ebenso untersucht wie die Grenzen einer kommunalen Verschuldung als Alternative zu den genannten Partnerschaften. (DÜI-Hlb)