Cities exist, grow, and prosper because they take advantage of scale economies and specialization wrought by agglomeration. But output growth inevitably stresses transport infrastructure because production requires space and mobility. To prevent congestion from crowding out agglomeration benefits and to expand the supply of urban land, cities must invest in transport infrastructure. Yet balancing the growing demand for infrastructure with its supply is often difficult. In particular, many cities lack the funding to maintain and expand streets and urban highways.

The World Bank Group’s investment climate project conducted a survey of foreign investors in the Kyrgyz Republic - both those currently operating and those that have terminated their operations for various reasons. The purpose of the survey was to assess selected aspects of the investment policy and legal environment in place in the Kyrgyz Republic, so as to determine whether the current regulations are investment-conducive or otherwise.

While scholars long recognized the importance of land markets as a key driver of rural non-farm development and transformation in rural areas, evidence on the extent of their operation and the nature of participants remains limited. We use household data from 6 countries to show that there is great potential for such markets to increase productivity and equalize factor ratios. While rental markets transfer land to land-poor and labor-rich producers, their operation and thus impact may be constrained by policy restrictions.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to theunderstanding and discussion of how the costs andbenefits of natural resource development are sharedacross society. This paper presents how IFC, as both aninvestor and a development organization, determineswhether benefits and costs are shared reasonably, and how this assessment influences IFC’s decision to invest ina particular natural resource project. the goal of the paper is to promotea broad, constructive dialogue across stakeholders—governments, investors, civil society, and others—around benefit sharing.

China is considering ways to attract additional capital to finance investment in railways. Worldwide, private capital has been attracted to the railway sector through a range of mechanisms including: (i) private sector provision of specific rail services or assets such as rolling stock; (ii) public private partnerships; (iii) leveraging commercial value of rail assets and increased land value around stations; and (iv) debt and equity financing of railway companies. Private sector investors seek to earn a return on investment that is commensurate with the risk of the investment.

Chinese Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Africa is on the rise and Ethiopia is at the forefront of this trend. On request of the Government, the World Bank surveyed 69 Chinese enterprises doing business in Ethiopia with a 95-question survey in May/June 2012. The survey covered various aspects of the foreign direct investment climate in Ethiopia, including infrastructure, sales and supplies, land, crime, competition, finance, human resources, and questions about general opportunities and constraints for doing business in Ethiopia.

The point of departure of this paper is that in the absence of effectively functioning asset markets the distribution of wealth matters for efficiency. Inefficient asset markets depress total factor productivity (TFP) in two ways: first, by not allowing efficient firms to grow to the size that they should achieve (this could include many great firms that are never started); and second, by allowing inefficient firms to survive by depressing the demand for factors (good firms are too small) and hence factor prices.

On August 25, 2009, the 13th Government of the Palestinian Authority (PA) presented a program entitled "Palestine: ending the occupation, establishing the state" (hereafter referred to as the program) outlining several national goals, including the achievement of 'economic independence and national prosperity'. The program accords high priority to the development of the public institutions of the PA in order to achieve the stated national goals.

The purpose of this handbook is to provide policy makers with a framework to assess a tax system in its entirety, measure its various parameters and how it is administered, and defines best practices for tax policy and administration that will yield a tax system that is simple and predictable and does not create an undue burden on private enterprise. This handbook is primarily designed for policy makers and tax practitioners. The goal is to analyze the impact of income tax, the value added tax (VAT), and other local taxes that are imposed on business.

Issue: 83

Date: 18/8/1382

In order for the executions of the state to be uniform and integrated regarding [immovable] property across the country, and to solve the problems [faced by] people and the state in this regard, I approve  the following:

NO: (7)

Date: 14/01/1384 (03/04/2005)

Article 1:

Sections (1&3) of article (3) and articles (12, 13, 16, 17, 20 and 22) shall be amended as follow:

1- Under section (1) of article 3 the expression ‘railway’ shall be added after the expression ‘highways’, and the text (and schools, implementation of urban plans) shall be added after the expression (seminaries or religious schools), and under section (3) of article 3 the expression (and legal) shall be added following the expression (canonical).

Art. 1 A desapropriacao por utilidade publica regular-se-a por esta lei, em todo 0 territ6rio nacional.

Art. 2 Mediante declaracao de utilidade publica, todos os hens poderao ser desapropriados pela Uniao, pelos Estados, Municfpios, Distrito Federal e Territories.

§ I A desapropriacao do espaco aereo ou do sub-solo so se tornara necessaria, quando de sua utilizacao resultar prejufzo patrimonial do proprietario do solo.