World Bank Discussion Paper No. 271. This study incorporates data from comparable surveys across five African countries--Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Senegal, and Tanzania--to analyze how small and micro enterprises have been positively and negatively affected by policy liberalization schemes. Some grow rapidly by adapting their products, while others stagnate because of import competition and increased self- employment. Comparisons were made between small firms, with 6 to 49 workers, and microenterprises, with fewer than 6. The study suggests a two-pronged strategy: (1) to facilitate widespread participation in microenterprises, broad measures are needed to lower the costs of entry, generate demand for their goods and services, raise the educational level and incomes of the poor, and encourage informal financial institutions; (2) to stimulate growth of potentially dynamic enterprises, well-targeted measures may be appropriate to lower the costs of entry, increase access to credit, and provide demand-driven business services. Also available in French (ISBN 0-8213-3907-0) Stock No. 13907.

First published in 1985, Decentralization provides an analytical framework for the comparative study of decentralization in contemporary systems of government. It discusses the structures and processes of all forms of decentralized government and administration, drawing on a wide range of states, developed and developing, capitalist and socialist. The book provides a comparative and theoretical treatment of a subject that for too long has been dealt with in a fragmented and ethnocentric fashion. Decentralization is examined from a theoretical perspective and the political demand for it is analysed. Four key universal themes are then explored: areas, intergovernmental relations, finance and institutions. Decentralization to small-scale communities is discussed and the special claims made for decentralization in developing countries are assessed. Examples are drawn from a wide range of countries throughout the world. The book is intended for courses in public administration, comparative government, urban studies and public policy. It will help both the student and the non-specialist understand an important and topical aspect of government everywhere.

When the post-Mao leadership initiated economic reform in 1978, they set in motion a process which resulted in a fundamental redistribution of power within the Chinese party-state. Reducing central administrative economic control was a key component of the reform process. But although the decentralization of power to the provinces and producers was a deliberate central strategy, the resulting growth of provincial economic autonomy has surprised and angered even the architects of the decentralization reforms. China's reformist central leaders must take their share of the blame for the unexpected growth in provincial power in the 1980s. Their decision to adopt an incremental and reactive approach to reform may have been the most practical way of changing the economic system, but it never-the-less prepared the ground for provincial considerations gradually to overtake national concerns in local economic decision making. The resulting redistribution of power between centre and provinces has not only obstructed the attainment of some of the goals of reform, but also has important implications for the future trajectory of the Chinese political system.