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Global consumers, international brands, and governments in producing and outsourcing countries aim to improve working conditions in global value chains, but uncertainty exists about what is the best approach. This research uses firm-level data from the International Labour Organization-International Finance Corporation Better Work Vietnam program to assess the relationship between transparency on working conditions and firm compliance in the apparel sector in Vietnam between 2010 and 2018. It exploits a change in the policies of Better Work Vietnam when, in 2015, the program announced the launch of a new public disclosure program that would see factories' names made publicly available along with their compliance (or lack thereof) with certain "critical issues." The paper first examines which firm characteristics correlate with reductions in noncompliance rates over time, and then examines the impact of the public disclosure policy on compliance rates and firm dropout using different empirical techniques. It finds that while continued participation in the Better Work Vietnam program has the strongest effect on changes in firm compliance with labor standards over time, public disclosure is also associated with increased compliance, with stronger effects in some compliance points, including occupational health and safety, work time, and child labor. There is some evidence of increased dropout, but no evidence of firms only making progress on the critical issues is found. The research findings suggest that public disclosure within global value chains matters for firm behavior.

Child Labor --- Compliance --- Corporate Governance --- Global Value Chain --- Global Value Chains and Business Clustering --- Labor Policies --- Labor Policy --- Labor Standards --- Occupational Safety --- Private Sector Development --- Public Disclosure --- Social Protections and Labor --- Work Time

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Creditor-friendly laws are generally associated with more credit to the private sector and deeper financial markets. But laws mean little if they are not upheld in the courts. The authors hypothesize that the effectiveness of creditor rights is strongly linked to the efficiency of contract enforcement. This hypothesis is tested using firm level data on 27 European countries in 2002 and 2005. The analysis finds that firms have more access to bank credit in countries with better creditor rights, but the association between creditor rights and bank credit is much weaker in countries with inefficient courts. Exploiting the panel dimension of the data and the fact that creditor rights change over time, the authors show that the effect of a change in creditor rights on change in bank credit increases with court enforcement. In particular, a unit increase in the creditor rights index will increase the share of bank loans in firm investment by 27 percent in a country at the 10th percentile of the enforcement time distribution (Lithuania). However, the increase will be only 7 percent in a country at the 80th percentile of this distribution (Kyrgyzstan). Legal protections of creditors and efficient courts are strong complements.

Access to Finance --- Bank loans --- Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress --- Banks and Banking Reform --- Contract enforcement --- Creditor --- Creditor Rights --- Creditors --- Debt Markets --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Finance Corporation --- Financial markets --- Legal protections --- Legal systems --- Public Disclosure

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The goal of this paper is to understand better, at the empirical level, how public spending contributes to growth by focusing on both the level and composition of public spending, in connection to the dynamics of GDP per capita growth. It attempts to answer two specific questions: (a) What are the policy conditions under which public spending contributes positively to growth? and (b) What are the public spending components that have a stronger and longer-lasting impact on growth? The analysis is applied to a sample of seven fast-growing developing countries: Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Botswana, and Mauritius, which have been among the top performers in the world in terms of GDP per capita growth during the period (1960-2006). The rationale for this country sample selection is twofold. The first hypothesis is that, given their positive growth achievements over a relatively long time period, perhaps it is more straightforward to establish a link to public spending in those countries. Second, it is expected that the findings of the analysis will provide lessons regarding the level and composition of public spending that can be useful for other countries where growth has been less rapid. Assessing what role public spending has played in a dynamic growth context may indeed be enlightening for other cases as well. The paper is structured as follows. The first section is an introduction that provides relevant facts and information about the seven countries during the period of analysis, based on seven individual country case studies. Section II presents the theoretical background behind the empirical analysis. Section III focuses on the empirical methodology, function specification, and variables selected. Section IV is dedicated to the results obtained with the cross-country analysis and some specific country results, as well as some comparisons with previous findings by other authors. Finally, Section V draws policy implications and concludes.

Allocation --- Composition of public spending --- Debt Markets --- Economic Theory and Research --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Fiscal policy --- Government expenditure --- Inequality --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Poverty Reduction --- Poverty reduction --- Pro-Poor Growth --- Public disclosure --- Public expenditure --- Public finance --- Public Sector Economics and Finance --- Public Sector Expenditure Analysis and Management --- Public spending --- Uncertainty

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This paper complements the cross-country approach by examining the correlates of growth acceleration in per capita gross domestic product around "significant" public expenditure episodes by reorganizing the data around turning points, or events. The authors define a growth event as an increase in average per capita growth of at least 2 percentage points sustained for 5 years. A fiscal event is an increase in the annual growth rate of primary fiscal expenditure of approximately 1 percentage point sustained for 5 years and not accompanied by an aggravation of the fiscal deficit beyond 2 percent of gross domestic product. These definitions of events are applied to a database of 140 countries (118 developing countries) for 1972-2005. After controlling for the growth-inducing effects of positive terms-of-trade shocks and of trade liberalization reform, probit estimates indicate that a growth event is more likely to occur in a developing country when surrounded by a fiscal event. Moreover, the probability of occurrence of a growth event in the years following a fiscal event is greater the lower is the associated fiscal deficit, confirming that success of a growth-oriented fiscal expenditure reform hinges on a stabilized macroeconomic environment (through a limited primary fiscal deficit).

Debt Markets --- Economic Conditions and Volatility --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Fiscal Adjustment --- Fiscal Deficit --- Fiscal Expenditure --- Fiscal Policy --- Gross Domestic Product --- Growth Rate --- Macroeconomic Environment --- Macroeconomic Stability --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Poverty Reduction --- Pro-Poor Growth --- Public Disclosure --- Public Expenditure --- Public Sector Expenditure Analysis and Management

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A recent trend in decentralization in several large and diverse countries is the creation of local jurisdictions below the regional level - municipalities, towns, and villages - whose spending is almost exclusively financed by grants from both regional and national governments. This paper argues that such grants-financed decentralization enables politicians to target benefits to pivotal voters and organized interest groups in exchange for political support. Decentralization, in this model, is subject to political capture, facilitating vote-buying, patronage, or pork-barrel projects, at the expense of effective provision of broad public goods. There is anecdotal evidence on local politics in several large countries that is consistent with this theory. The paper explores its implications for international development programs in support of decentralization.

Banks & Banking Reform --- Cities --- Community participation --- Decentralization --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Governance --- Local governments --- Local public services --- Local revenue --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Municipal governments --- Municipalities --- National Governance --- Parliamentary Government --- Political competition --- Provinces --- Public disclosure --- Public Sector Development --- Public Sector Economics --- Resource allocation --- Revenue-raising potential --- Revenue-raising power --- State governments --- Subnational Economic Development --- Tax --- Tax bases --- Towns --- Village --- Villages