Fiscal decentralization in developing countries has been at the center stage of public sector reforms in the last two decades. Yet, a closer look at the recent reforms in the developing world indicates...
Development outreach has asked the leaders of the WDR 2005 team, Warrick P. Smith and Mary C. Hallward-Driemeier to put together the special report featured in this issue in order to provide comments by...
To help strengthen good governance and promote government account-ability and transparency, the World Bank Institute's Poverty Reduction and Economic Reform division (WBIPR) organized in collaboration...
For many years, World Bank knowledge and learning pertaining to social accountability stemmed from a handful of pioneering initiatives, such as those on participatory budgeting by the municipality of Porto...
This paper explores the contribution of parliaments to the budget process in presidential systems of government with highly centralized budgetary systems. It offers a political economy perspective on the...
The PRSP (Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper) process is continually evolving as countries and their development partners learn from early experience. This report is designed to assist those involved in...
During the 1990s, more than a quarter of the countries of the world revised their constitutions to include an expand the role of their legislatures. Legislative oversight is nowhere more important than...
This document presents several arguments to support the statement postulated by Aristotle 25 centuries ago : " Policy makers should direct their attention above all to the education of youth "-each chapter...
The paper focuses on the public pension system in Japan and traces its development against the overall background of the socioeconomic developments since 1950s. The country's establishment of a public...
Most health services in Japan are provided through the public health insurance system, which covers the entire population. Although the private sector has established an important infrastructure that delivers...
With regard to traditional social policy or the "welfare state in a narrow sense," Japan is not as different from Western models as is usually assumed. With Long-Term-Care Insurance, it may soon start...
In Japan today, means-tested public assistance remains a modest component of the welfare system-in marked contrast to the expanding universal programs of national pensions, national health insurance, and...
By tracing Japan's history, the paper argues that families and communities have played important roles in the country's successful socioeconomic performance. The argument is first made by comparing Japan's...
Japan has achieved rapid improvement in social welfare during its high economic growth era, while the expansion of social expenditure as a percentage of GDP remained stable during this period. One of the...
A strong inter-regional equity bias has been a distinctive feature of the Japanese local public finance system. This paper shows that substantial equalization of revenues per capita is achieved via transfers...
This paper examines social development in India over the last fifty years, stipulating it has suffered from three fatal flaws in the Nehruvian vision that set the tone for policies in this period. These...
According to this paper, Singapore's success in economic, and social development in recent decades, has been due to pragmatic policies, and general public acceptance of a limited government role in such...
This paper analyzes the efficacy of the national health insurance (NHI) system in the Republic of Korea, and the role played by the private sector in the provision of health care services. It identifies...
This paper presents the experience of the Republic of Korea, in setting up a National Pension Scheme (NPS), and assesses its likely effectiveness in coping with future challenges. The Korean NPS has features...