James Anderson

"The Anticorruption in Transition Series" examines patterns and trends in corruption in business-government interactions in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and the progress achieved by countries in addressing it. The findings of this third volume, derived by a large-scale survey undertaken in collaboration with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, indicate continued improvement in many countries. Thanks to their reform efforts and external/internal drivers of change.

This study reviews the experience of countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in reforming their judicial systems to fit the needs of a market economy, drawing on a variety of data sources. Reformers initially emphasized the passage of laws and the establishment of judicial independence over longer-term institution building. While there is still some way to go in establishing independence, there is much further to go in creating courts that are quick, affordable, effective, and fair and honest. Firms' and citizens' views of courts are generally negative and appear to be getting worse in some countries. It is probably fair to say that less overall progress has been made in judicial strengthening than in almost any other area of policy or institutional reform since 1990. Countries and donors are now placing increasing emphasis on the need to improve the independence, efficiency, accountability, and enforcement capacity of judicial institutions. Transition countries vary significantly - not only in the specific problems they face but also in both judicial capacity and in the demand by the public for well-functioning judiciaries. The strategy and priorities for each country going forward will depend in large part on its particular situation.

Building Market Institutions in South Eastern Europe, a collaborative effort of the World Bank and the EBRD, analyses the institutional impediments to investment and growth in eight SEE countries - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, and Serbia and Montenegro - and suggests policy reforms to ease these constraints. The analysis focuses on four core issues: (i) Business competition and economic barriers to entry/exit, (ii) Access to regulated utilities and services, (iii) Corporate ownership, financial transparency and access to finance, and (iv) Commercial dispute resolution. These issues are investigated empirically across the SEE countries to allow for cross-country comparisons and to develop a regional perspective on corresponding policy challenges. The study is innovative not only because of its use of a cross-country comparative analytical framework applied to a well-defined - and politically important - region, but also because of the novel way it marries data from several sources: (i) official data from the eight countries; (ii) two rounds of results (for 1999 and 2002) of a quantitative firm-level survey (EBRD-World Bank Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey) covering approximately 1600 SEE firms; and (iii) the results from a set of 40 original enterprise-level business case studies developed in the field in each of the eight countries. Building Market Institutions in South Eastern Europe provides new insights on improving the South East European business environment and suggests concrete policy recommendations.

Praise for The Unfinished Agenda of Brown V. Board of Education "My father, Oliver L. Brown, for whom Brown v. Board of Education is named, was a proud member of a group of a few hundred people, across the country, who took risks by taking a stand for what they believed. He died in 1961, just seven years after the case, so he didn’t live long enough to know that Brown would become the foundation on which so much of this country’s civil and human rights initiatives would rest. "Brown v. Board became important for every citizen, not just African Americans. It shows that the founding documents of our country provided us with sovereign rights that cannot be restricted by state and local governments. That decision impacted the lives of women, persons with disabilities, blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians, and everyone living in this country. "Brown was significant in attacking the silence. It opened up a dialogue and forced the country to take on greater responsibility; we at every level had to start addressing the issue of race. In many ways, once the dialogue started, we finally began to understand the depths of racism. This case was about gaining access to educational resources; the resources were and remain where the white children are. The Unfinished Agenda of Brown v. Board of Education is about renewing and continuing the promise of Brown." ––Cheryl Brown Henderson, president of the Brown Foundation for Educational Equity, Excellence, and Research, and daughter of Oliver L. Brown, one of the thirteen plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education

Backed by Wien Airlines, former Navy combat pilot "Andy" Anderson pioneered post-war bush service to Alaska's Koyukuk River region, serving miners, Natives, sportsmen, geologists, adventurers, and assorted bush rats. Besides passengers, he hauled everything needed for bush life, plus mining equipment and gold. Unusual freight included live wolves and sled dogs. After one husky panicked on take-off, thrashing about between him and the controls, he learned to tie the dogs. He sweated out dozens of hazardous medivac flights, "always at night in terrible storms." Crammed with adventures and misadventures and generously illustrated, this is a must-read for aviation and history buffs.