Public Expenditure Reviews: progress and potential
PREMNote 20
How can the Bank use public expenditure reviews to assist its clients in ensuring that the best use is made of a country’s resources? A public expenditure review (PER) analyzes public sector issues in general and the public budget in particular. This note looks at the role of PERs in advancing the development agenda in client countries examines experiences with these reviews and sets out an approach for improving them.

 

April 1999

Using an ombudsman to oversee public officials
PREMNote 19
An ombudsman investigates complaints makes recommendations and tries to ensure that those recommendations are followed. But simply establishing such an office is no panacea for administrative excesses.

 

April 1999

Decentralizing Borrowing Powers
PREMNote 15
With sound intergovernmental fiscal relations and proper regulation subnational borrowing is both feasible and reasonable. Where these conditions are not in place subnational borrowing may lead to unplanned liabilities for central government and thus should be restricted to while enabling institutions are developed.

 

January 1999

New frontiers in diagnosing and combating corruption
PREMNote 7
Corruption flourishes where policies provide incentives for it and restraining institutions are weak. Diagnosing corruption helps a country understand the shortcomings in its policies and institutions and design a strategy to strengthen the state’s performance.

 

October 1998

Corruption and development
PREMNote 4
What are the main causes and costs of corruption? This note examines that question and suggests ways to enhance anticorruption efforts in developing and transition economies

 

May 1998