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Central America has come a long way both in terms of economic and political stability. Increasingly the region is focusing on implementing productivity-enhancing reforms as well as supporting reductions in poverty and inequality. This report analyzes recent trends in public social spending in Central America from 2007 to 2014, conducts international benchmarking, examines measures of the effectiveness and efficiency of social spending, and discusses the quality of selected institutions influencing this spending. We examine total social spending, as well as detailing its four components: public spending on the education, health, and social protection and labor (SPL) sectors. In analyzing public social spending, the report addresses three crucial policy issues: (a) how to improve the coverage and redistributional incidence of public social spending; (b) how to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of public social spending; and (c) how to strengthen the institutions governing public spending in the social sector. While based heavily on a series of recent analytical social spending studies in six countries in the subregion-Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama-this report also takes a broader regional perspective and includes some comparisons to countries in other regions.

Cost Effectivity --- Efficiency --- Incidence Analysis --- Institutional Development --- Social Spending --- Central America --- Social conditions.

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This paper contributes to the literature that explores the link between regulatory governance and sector performance. The paper develops an index of regulatory governance and estimates its impact on sector performance, showing that indeed regulation and its governance matter. The authors use two unique databases: (i) the World Bank Performance Database, which contains detailed annual data for 250 private and public electricity companies in Latin America and the Caribbean; and (ii) the Electricity Regulatory Governance Database, which contains data on several aspects of the governance of electricity agencies in the region. The authors run different models to explain the impacts of change in ownership and different characteristics of the regulatory agency on the performance of the utilities. The results suggest that the mere existence of a regulatory agency, regardless of the utilities' ownership, has a significant impact on performance. Furthermore, after controlling for the existence of a regulatory agency, the ownership dummies are still significant and with the expected signs. The authors propose an experience measure in order to identify the gradual impact of the regulatory agency on utility performance. The results confirm this hypothesis. In addition, the paper explores two different measures of governance, an aggregate measure of regulatory governance, and an index based on principal components, including autonomy, transparency, and accountability. The findings show that the governance of regulatory agencies matters and has significant effects on performance.

Accountability --- Banks and Banking Reform --- Disclosure --- Emerging Markets --- Governance --- Governance Indicators --- Governance indicators --- Infrastructure Economics and Finance --- Infrastructure Regulation --- Institutional development --- Judiciary --- Legal framework --- National Governance --- Private Sector Development --- Regulatory agency --- Regulatory instruments --- Regulatory policy --- Transparency

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Drawing on Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability assessment scores from 118 countries, this paper provides the first comparative analysis of public financial management performance in small Pacific Island Countries (PICs). It applies a Tobit regression model across the full cross-country sample of Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability scores and country variables to identify potential causes for the observed underperformance of Pacific Island countries relative to other countries of similar income. First, the analysis finds small population size to be negatively correlated with Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability scores, with the "population penalty" faced by small Pacific Island countries sufficient to explain observed underperformance. Second, through application of a new capacity index of Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability dimensions, it finds strong evidence in support of the hypothesis that small population size impacts scores through the imposition of capacity constraints: with a limited pool of human capital, small countries face severe and permanent challenges in accessing an adequate range and depth of technical skills to fulfill all functions assessed through the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability framework. These findings suggest that approaches to strengthening public financial management in small Pacific Island countries should involve: i) careful prioritization of public financial management capacity toward areas that represent binding constraints to development; ii) adoption of public financial management systems that can function within inherent and binding capacity constraints, rather than wholesale adoption of "best practice" imported systems; and iii) consideration of options for accessing external capacity to support public financial management systems on a long-term basis, from regional agencies, the private sector, or donors.

Debt Markets --- E-Business --- Governance --- Institutional development --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Pacific Island Countries --- Population Policies --- Poverty Reduction --- Public financial management --- Public Sector Economics --- Public Sector Expenditure Policy --- Small-island states

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In efforts to reform the administration of tax systems, the World Bank can substantially improve project design, execution, and effectiveness by adopting a more concerted approach to institutional analysis. The main constraint on World Bank operations in tax and customs administration is the Bank's inadequate institutional framework for accumulating knowledge from loan operations, concludes this review of the Bank's record on reform of tax systems in the 1990s. The Bank's theoretical basis for reforming tax and customs administration is still rudimentary. Recent theories stress the importance of institutions that harness voice and improve transparency and contestability, but there is little evidence that reform of these factors alone makes tax administration more effective. Improvements are needed in pre-project diagnosis and project design, especially for examining accountability, administration costs, managerial autonomy, performance incentives for staff, taxpayer equity and services, and environmental factors. Pre-project work could draw more systematically on lessons from previous experience. Institutional components of project design have been biased toward organization, manpower upgrading, and procedures related to information technology. Too little attention has been paid to improving accountability, administrative cost-effectiveness, and anticorruption institution-building. Projects have made inadequate use of different kinds of performance indicators, with little uniformity in those applied. Methods used to evaluate project outcomes could be better and more uniform. Suggestions for future Bank operations: Doing better background work and articulating a strategy and comprehensive framework for Bank involvement in reform of tax administration; Possibly supporting and strengthening regional tax administration associations, which could serve as catalysts for change; Strengthening partnering and supporting private sector consultant organizations, so they can manage major components of administrative reform; Institutionalizing the accumulation of knowledge about tax administration (which might require changing staff recruitment, the mix of staff skills, and training plans). The authors provide recommendations for improving project diagnosis, design, performance indicators, and appraisal, as well as a short list of projects that serve as guides to good practice. This paper - a product of the Public Sector Management Division, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network - is part of a larger effort in the network to draw on lessons of past Bank activity in order to pursue professional excellence and maximum client impact. The authors may be contacted at lbarbone@worldbank.org, oldmonk87@yahoo.com, ldewulf@worldbank.org, or ahansson1@worldbank.org.

Accountability --- Audits --- Bank --- Banks and Banking Reform --- Communities & Human Settlements --- Debt Markets --- E-Business --- Emerging Markets --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial Literacy --- Governance --- Governance Capacity Building --- Housing and Human Habitats --- Institutional Development --- Law and Development --- Lending --- Loans --- Macroeconomic Stability --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Principal --- Private Sector Development --- Projects --- Public Sector Development --- Public Sector Economics and Finance --- Revenue --- Risk --- Services --- Social Services --- Structural Adjustment --- Tax Law --- Tax Policy and Administration --- Tax Reform --- Taxation --- Taxation and Subsidies --- Technical Assistance --- Value

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This book focuses on empirical analyses of the Environmental Kuznets Curve. Most papers apply their research on CO2 emissions. The papers in this Special Issue seek to improve modeling techniques to prevent econometrical flaws (e.g., by adding additional explanatory variables and/or moving away from linear regression models) and apply their models to specific countries or groups of countries.

productivity changes --- technical efficiency --- energy industry --- DEA-based Malmquist productivity index --- European Union --- Environmental Kuznets Curve --- carbon dioxide emissions --- environmental degradation --- financial development --- energy use --- institutional quality --- institutional development --- human capital --- CO2 emissions --- co-integration analysis --- pollution-income --- Environmental Kunzets Curve --- education --- income-inequality --- Europe --- panel data --- clustering --- carbon tax --- price elasticity --- translog cost function --- energy and carbon performance --- environmental kuznets curve --- kink regression model --- G7 countries --- EKC estimation --- CO2 emissions prediction --- neural networks --- radial basis function neural network --- renewable energy consumption --- n/a