Library

ICSA 2004 "Statement on Regulatory and Self-Regulatory Consultation Practices"
The ICSA believes that transparency is essential for the development and stability of capital markets. In order to initiate successful transparency in securities markets regulation, there needs to be effective consultation between securities regulators and market participants, as well as between regulators and self-regulators. The ICSA describes the five principles that need to be followed in order to increase transparency.

annotated bibliography
this is an annotated bibliography test

Transparency and International Investor Behavior, IMF
This report examines the question of whether countries’ transparency policies affect international portfolio investment. The findings include: evidence that international funds invest less in countries that are less transparent, herding among funds are less common in less transparent countries, and that funds leave non-transparent countries in larger amounts during crises.

Report to the Congress on the Extension of Trade Promotion Authority, USTR
This report by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) discusses the Trade Act of 2002 signed by President Bush. The report discusses the inner-workings of the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), its benefits, and resultant agreements signed through the authority offered to the President by the TPA.

Regulatory Transparency, Developing Countries, and the Fate of the WTO; Canadian Political Science Association
Robert Wolfe discusses the challenges of increasing globalization and transparency given the varying levels of development among members of the international trade order. He questions whether transparency rules inherent in the WTO enable adaptation and integration into the international trade order despite these varying levels of development. He purports to answer these questions through an investigation of how Canada, Brazil, South Africa, Thailand and Uganda enforce WTO requirements on transparency in the spheres of telecommunications and food safety.

Doing Business in 2005: Removing Obstacles to Growth, World Bank
“Doing Business in 2005” investigates regulations that create and constrain business activity. The analysis consists of 145 countries and quantitative indexes such as (1) starting a business, (2) hiring and firing workers, (3) enforcing contracts, (4) getting credit, and (5) closing a business, (6) registering property, and (7) protecting investors. These indexes help determine country-wide outcomes such as productivity and unemployment. Furthermore, the investigation concludes with an analysis of which reforms are most successful and why.

Public Sector Modernization: Open Government, OECD
This policy brief by the OECD explores open government, its definition and benefits. Furthermore, it identifies how countries have taken action to demands for greater transparency, ways to achieve greater open government, and impediments and challenges posed to achieving greater transparency.

Japan: Progress in Implementing Regulatory Reform, OECD
Japan’s progress in implementing reform in regulations is examined in this review by the OECD. It identifies many policies implemented by Japan to increase regulatory reform, market openness and competition. Aside from these positive reforms, the OECD determines a couple of objectives to be achieved by Japans government.

A Framework for Investment Policy Transparency, OECD
The OECD determines different routes to be pursued by OECD and non-OECD members alike to ensure greater transparency in investment policy. The report lists 15 questions posed to various government officials aimed at facilitating the evaluation and policy development process.

The Impact of Transparency on FDI, WTO
This investigation of the affect transparency has on FDI determines that a positive correlation exists between regulatory transparency and FDI. A simulation exercise in the report determines that “on average a country could expect 40 percent increase in FDI from a one point increase in their transparency ranking”.

Main Building Blocks of Modern Governance and Transparency for Investment, OECD
Co-Chairs of the Global Forum on International Investment in Johannesburg put out this statement on the importance transparency plays in investment. The statement is a summary of what members of the Forum found to be the major impediments to good governance and transparency that affected investment and methods to be incorporated in members’ governments to ensure greater transparency for investment.

Transparency in Domestic Regulation: Practices and Possibilities, OECD
This report aims at identifying the positive aspects of implementing regulatory transparency. Furthermore, good regulatory practices and ways to enhance transparency under the GATS are recognized.

Strengthening Regulatory Transparency: Insights For the GATS From the Regulatory Reform Country Reviews, OECD
The OECD examines transparency provisions in the GATT and summarizes requirements within the GATS pertaining to transparency in this report. Furthermore, it presents findings on analyses of country reviews on regulatory reform initiatives in order to compare the practices employed with the GATS requirements. The analysis concludes with ways to enhance the GATS provisions relating to transparency and regulations.

Transparency, WTO
The importance of transparency obligations in international investment agreements (IIAs) is asserted by the WTO in this report. Furthermore, it identifies ways in which transparency is dealt with in IIAs along with some issues deemed in need of being resolved.

The Global Costs of Opacity: Measuring Business and Investment Risk Worldwide, The Kurtzman Group
The Opacity Index, an Index founded by the Kurtzman Group, measures the risk of doing business and investing in a country. This Index measures risk in a countries economy based on information obtained from companies and financial and economic experts. The risks identified are: “corruption, efficacy of the legal system, deleterious economic policy, inadequate accounting and governance practices, and detrimental regulatory structures”. The Kurtzman Group finds that the higher the level of opacity, the slower the growth and less FDI. Another part of the Opacity Index is the Opacity Premium/Discount. This measures the interest rate premium or discount from doing business in the country studied, as opposed to doing it in the U.S.

FDI Confidence Index, A.T. Kearney
A.T. Kearney’s FDI Confidence Index asks CEO’s, CFO’s and other top decision-makers of the world’s largest 1,000 firms a series of questions. These questions include what their top FDI destinations are, and what their investment intentions there would be. In this Index, there exist a total of 65 possible countries representing 90% of global FDI flows.