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In recent years, alongside democratic backsliding and security threats, censorship is increasingly used by governments and other societal actors to control the media. Who is likely to be affected by censorship and why? Does censorship as a form of punishment coexist with or act as a substitute for reward-based forms of media capture such as market concentration or bribes? First, this argues that censors employ censorship only toward certain targets that provide information to politically consequential audiences, while allowing media that caters to elite audiences to report freely. Second, the paper hypothesizes that coercion and inducements are substitutes, with censorship being employed primarily when bribes and ownership fail to control information. To test these hypotheses, a new data set was built of 9,000 salient censorship events and their characteristics across 196 countries between 2001 and 2015. The study finds strong empirical support for the theory of media market segmentation.

Anti-Corruption --- Broadcast and Media --- Censorship --- Crime and Society --- Educational Sciences --- Governance --- Human Rights --- Law and Development --- Media --- National Governance --- Performance Measurement --- Public Sector --- Quality of Life and Leisure --- Social Analysis --- Social Development --- Youth and Governance

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The power sector reform experiences of developing countries vary greatly. To help explain this from a political economy perspective, this paper reviews several dozen statistical analyses, multi-country case studies, and development practice publications. The frame of reference is the model of market-oriented reforms that became a global norm in the 1990s. Findings are organized in terms of the history, theory, motives, processes and outcomes of reforms. Market orientation emerged around the 1980s as part of a shift in economic theory and policy away from state control, and was expected to improve efficiency and investments. Reform advocates never took political economy issues into full consideration. Yet, policy makers have had sociopolitical as well as technical motives for reform, such as crisis response. International norms and competition for foreign investment and trade pulled governments to model reforms, while development partners pushed them as a condition of aid. Reform implementation has been characterized by strong tensions among different public and private interests. Concretely, 1990s model reforms were based on a logic of depoliticizing pricing and investment decisions; often placing policy makers in a conflict of interest situation. Thus, the political costs and risks of reform have often exceeded the benefits perceived by local decision makers, especially as reforms did not generally result in immediate benefits for citizens. In practice, incremental, inclusive processes may be better than quick and stealthy reforms that sidestep stakeholders' concerns. While there was limited evidence of efficacy at the time the reforms were implemented, ex post the outcomes of reforms are ambiguous, as improvements in some areas have been offset by negative results elsewhere. For increasing access to electricity and clean energy, 1990s model reforms may help, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient, nor did they focus on these objectives. In conclusion, the success or failure of policy prescriptions such as 1990s model reforms are contingent on dynamic, context-specific institutions as well as factors beyond the sector. More work is needed on integrated, flexible approaches to think and work politically in the sector, and to account for new technology and diverse sector development objectives.

Competition --- De Facto Governments --- Democratic Government --- Developing Countries --- Emerging Markets --- Energy --- Energy and Environment --- Energy Demand --- Energy Policies and Economics --- Energy Privatization --- Energy Sector Regulation --- Governance --- Liberalization --- National Governance --- Political Economy --- Power Sector Reforms --- Private Sector Development --- Privatization --- Public Sector Development --- Quality of Life and Leisure --- Regulation --- Social Analysis --- Social Development --- Unbundling --- Youth and Governance

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This paper presents a simple model with financial frictions where inflation increases the cost faced by firms holding liquid assets to hedge risky production against expenditure shocks. Inflation tilts firms' technology choice away from innovative activities and toward safer but return-dominated ones, and therefore reduces long-run growth. The theory makes specific predictions about how the severity of this adverse effect depends on industry characteristics. These predictions are tested with novel harmonized firm-level data from 139 developing countries, overcoming small sample problems constraining previous work. The analysis finds that inflation affects the composition but not the overall quantity of investment. A one percentage point increase in inflation reduces the establishment-level probability of innovation by 4.3 percent but does not affect total investment. Moreover, innovating firms display a stronger dependence on liquid assets, which, in turn, are negatively related to inflation. Generalized difference-in-differences estimations corroborate the sector-specific predictions of the theoretical model.

Economic Growth --- Economic Theory and Research --- Employment and Unemployment --- Governance --- Industrial Economics --- Industry --- Inflation --- Innovation --- Investment --- Liquidity --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Nation --- National Governance --- Public Sector Development --- Quality of Life and Leisure --- Social Analysis --- Social Development --- Social Protections and Labor --- Technology Choice --- Transport --- Youth and Governance