The role of the state is finally the decision of the citizens. The government, being a result of elections, can provide more or less protection and increase or decrease expenditures. Anyway for achieving goals and for being performant the state definitly has to promote a good governance. Good...

The past few years have seen a growing trend towards the focus on audit liability. In the UK, the Company Law Reform Bill which became the Companies Act 2006, has removed the previously existing limits on auditor liability and compelled an agreement between the company and the auditor. As well...

This chapter offers a primer on poverty, inequality, and vulnerability analysis and a guide to resources on this topic. It is written for decision makers who want to define the type of information they need to monitor poverty reduction and make appropriate policy decisions and for the technical...

Guinea-Bissau endured a major conflict in 1998 and has suffered from persistent political instability since independence. After a brief review of indicators of governance in Guinea-Bissau and recent political developments, the objective of this Chapter is to provide results from a recent survey...

Public transport (urban and intercity) is organized in Spain both through concession contracts and public ownership. The regulator fixes prices and level of services,as well as the level of subsidy. This paper examines the regulated system in the Spanish bus industry in the last decades.

This paper discusses the use of benchmarking in general and its application to the drinking water sector. It systematizes the various classifications on performance measurement, discusses some of the pitfalls of benchmark studies and provides some examples of benchmarking in the water sector....

Given the poor economic performance of Guinea-Bissau over the last few years, including a severe recession toward the end of 2002, poverty is likely to be high and to have risen in recent years even compared to its high postconflict level. The first objective of this chapter is to estimate the...

This article investigates the relationships among economic growth, income distribution and poverty in Brazil during the period from 2001 to 2005. Those relationships are analyzed starting from the selection of three models: one that relates the variations in the poverty indicators and the main...

The freight rail deregulation have been considered, for long time, as a factor of security and safety reduction. This article means to show that, for the moment, we can't consider french freight rail deregulation have a significative impact on security and safety. So, I look if it's possible...

We evaluate the impact of the rise in food prices during 2006-2008 on the poverty and extreme poverty rates in Mexico. We concentrate on the poor’s consumption of staple foods, and analyze the change in their consumption brought about by changed prices. We also allow households receiving...