Accelerating Municipal Bond Market Development in Emerging Economies: An Assessment of Strategies and Progress
The advantages of using municipal bonds to finance urban infrastructure are increasingly evident to policymakers in emerging economies, some of whom are undertaking efforts to accelerate the development of municipal bond markets in their countries. Many of these efforts use the strengths of the U.S. municipal market as a guide to suggest the kinds of market characteristics necessary to attract issuers as well as investors to the marketplace. Features of the U.S. market are often difficult to recreate in these countries in the short run, but policymakers are using a variety of innovative techniques to approximate essential market characteristics. This article reviews these efforts in four emerging economies: Indonesia, the Philippines, Poland, and South Africa.
Local Government Units` Access to the Private Capital Markets
The devolution of functions and responsibilities to LGUs has translated to the expectations of an improved delivery of public goods and services. However, LGU funding, mainly coming from the national government, loans from the government-owned financial institutions and Municipal Development Fund, have not been sufficient to meet the LGU requirement. This study provides results and analyses that can assist the government in developing a policy and institutional framework for the establishment of a municipal credit system well participated by the private sector.
Chemical-Looping Combustion of Biomass in a 10 kWth Reactor with Iron Oxide As an Oxygen Carrier
Chemical-looping combustion of biomass was carried out in a 10 kWth reactor with iron oxide as an oxygen carrier. A total 30 h of test was achieved with the same batch of iron oxide oxygen carrier. The effect of the fuel reactor temperature on gas composition of the fuel reactor and the air reactor, the proportion of biomass carbon reacting in the fuel reactor, and the conversion of biomass carbon to CO2 in the fuel reactor was experimentally investigated. The results showed that the CO production from biomass gasification with CO2 was more temperature dependent than the CO oxidation with iron oxide in the fuel reactor, and an increase in the fuel reactor temperature produced a higher increase for the CO production from biomass gasification than for the oxidation of CO by iron oxide. Although the conversion of biomass carbon to CO2 in the fuel reactor decreased with the increase of the fuel reactor temperature, there was a substantial increase in the proportion of biomass carbon reacting in the fuel react...