The measurement of willingness to pay for electricity relies critically on a reliable estimate of the demand for electricity function. Empirical work tends to assume that the demand for electricity has no satiation point. Many electricity demand models assume a constant price elasticity, which implies infinite demand at low prices. This report proposes a plausible functional form for the demand of electricity. The proposed functional form is consistent with two properties of electricity demand functions for households & firms, namely, the negative relationships between price & quantity, & the finiteness of demand at zero price. The report also demonstrates that this functional form of the demand function leads to easily estimable economic benefits of electricity.

Viet Nam's dramatic transition and growth in the 1990s have been attributed to a series of reforms, known as "doi moi," which began in the late 1980s. Economic growth of nearly 8% yearly benefited the poor and reduced poverty from 61% in 1993 to 37% in 1998. The proportionate increases in the incomes of the poorest quintile were appreciably larger than those of the top 20 or 40% of the population. This result is at variance with typical findings for other countries, which indicate that welfare gains from growth are smallest for the lowest quintile and rise with income group. The results for Viet Nam suggest that the faster the growth rate, the lesser becomes the role of distributive factors that directly influence the poor's well-being. A print on demand report.

Provides evidence of a problem with the influential testing and assessment of Solow¿s (1956) growth model proposed by Mankiw et al. (1992) and a series of papers evaluating the latter. First, the assumption of a common rate of technical progress maintained by Mankiw et al. (1992) is relaxed. Solow¿s model is extended to include the different levels and rates of technical progress of each country. This increases the explanatory power of the cross-country variation in income/capital of the OECD countries to over 80%. The estimates of the parameters are statistically significant and take the expected values and signs. Second, the estimates merely reflect a statistical artifact. This has serious implications for the possibility of actually testing Solow¿s growth model. Illus.

In joining the Assoc. of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and ASEAN Free Trade Area, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Viet Nam have agreed to comply with the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) Scheme, which reduces intra-ASEAN tariff rates on certain imports and may reduce gov¿t. revenue. This study proposes tax structure and tax admin. reforms and other policies that can be introduced to enhance revenue collection. They can: Strategically allocate goods among the four CEPT scheme lists; Improve their tax systems by replacing traditional general sales taxes with Value Added Tax; Reduce inefficiencies that impede tax collection and Discourage tax avoidance and evasion and reduce corruption among tax officials.