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  • 2010-2014  (3,126)
  • 1950-1954  (3)
  • Washington, D.C : The World Bank  (3,129)
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  • 1
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    ISBN: 9781464801662
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (246 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Series Statement: World Development Indicators
    Abstract: The Little Data Book 2014 is a pocket edition of World Development Indicators 2014. It is intended as a quick reference for users of the World Development Indicators database, book, and mobile app. The database covers more than 1,200 indicators and spans more than 50 years. The 214 country tables present the latest available data for World Bank member countries and other economies with populations of more than 30,000. The 14 summary tables cover regional and income group aggregates
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  • 2
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    ISBN: 9781464801785
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (244 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Series Statement: World Development Indicators
    Abstract: This Little Data Book presents tables for over 213 economies showing the most recent national data on key indicators of information and communications technology (ICT), including access, quality, affordability, efficiency,sustainability, and applications
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  • 3
    ISBN: 9781464801525
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (372 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Series Statement: Latin American Development Forum
    Abstract: The seven million teachers of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are the critical actors in the region's efforts to improve education quality and raise student learning levels, which lag far behind those of OECD countries and East Asian countries such as China. This book documents the high economic stakes around teacher quality, benchmarks the current performance of LAC's teachers, and delineates the key issues. These include low standards for entry into teacher training, poor quality training programs that are detached from the realities of the classroom, unattractive career incentives, and weak support for teachers once they are on the job. New research conducted for this report in close to 15,000 classrooms in seven different LAC countries - the largest cross-country study of this kind to date - provides a first-ever insight into how the region's teachers perform inside the classroom. It documents that the average teacher in LAC loses the equivalent of one day of instructional time per week because of inadequate preparation, excessive time on administration (taking attendance, passing out papers) and a surprisingly high share of time physically absent from the classrooms where they should be teaching. Teachers also make limited use of available learning materials, espcially those using information and communications technology (ICT), and are unable to keep the majority of their students engaged. The book sets out the three priority lines of reform needed to produce great teachers in LAC: policies to recruit better teachers; programs to groom teachers and improve their skills once they are in service; and stronger incentives to motivate teachers to perform their best throughout their career. In every area, the book distills the latest evidence from inside and outside the region to provide practical guidance to policymakers in the design of effective programs and sustainable reforms. A final chapter analyzes the politics of recent major teacher reforms in Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico, chronicling the prominent role of teachers' unions and the political and communications strategies that have underpinned successful reforms
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  • 4
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    ISBN: 9781464802539
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (60 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Series Statement: World Bank Annual Report
    Abstract: The Annual Report is prepared by the Executive Directors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA)--collectively known as the World Bank--in accordance with the by-laws of the two institutions. The President of the IBRD and IDA and the Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors submits the Report, together with the accompanying administrative budgets and audited financial statements, to the Board of Governors
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  • 5
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    ISBN: 9781464803864
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (624 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Abstract: In the last 30 years, China’s record economic growth lifted half a billion people out of poverty, with rapid urbanization providing abundant labor, cheap land, and good infrastructure. While China has avoided some of the common ills of urbanization, strains are showing as inefficient land development leads to urban sprawl and ghost towns, pollution threatens people’s health, and farmland and water resources are becoming scarce. With China’s urban population projected to rise to about one billion - or close to 70 percent of the country’s population - by 2030, China’s leaders are seeking a more coordinated urbanization process. Urban China is a joint research report by a team from the World Bank and the Development Research Center of China’s State Council which was established to address the challenges and opportunities of urbanization in China and to help China forge a new model of urbanization. The report takes as its point of departure the conviction that China's urbanization can become more efficient, inclusive, and sustainable. However, it stresses that achieving this vision will require strong support from both government and the markets for policy reforms in a number of area. The report proposes six main areas for reform: first, amending land management institutions to foster more efficient land use, denser cities, modernized agriculture, and more equitable wealth distribution; second, adjusting the hukou household registration system to increase labor mobility and provide urban migrant workers equal access to a common standard of public services; third, placing urban finances on a more sustainable footing while fostering financial discipline among local governments; fourth, improving urban planning to enhance connectivity and encourage scale and agglomeration economies; fifth, reducing environmental pressures through more efficient resource management; and sixth, improving governance at the local level
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  • 6
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    ISBN: 9781464804021
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (92 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Series Statement: World Bank Studies
    Abstract: This report provides an overview of arguments explaining the risk of corruption. Corrupt acts are subject to decision making authority and assets available for grabbing. These assets can be stolen, created by artificial shortage, or become available as the result of a market failure. Assets that are especially exposed to corruption include profits from the private sector, revenues from the export of natural resources, aid and loans, and the proceeds of crime. Whether or not opportunities for corruption are exploited depends on the individuals involved, the institution or society they are part of, and the law enforcement circumstances. Corruption usually persists in situations in which players are aware of the facts but nonetheless condone the practice. Absence of reaction can result from information asymmetries (in which the people who are supposed to act are not aware of the need to act), coordination failure, patronage-determined loyalty, and incentive problems at the political level. This review of results and insights from different parts of the scholarly literature on corruption focuses on areas where research can guide anticorruption policy. The report also describes a number of corruption-related challenges in need of more attention from researchers
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  • 7
    ISBN: 9781464802904
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (152 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Series Statement: World Bank Studies
    Abstract: Gabon is an upper middle income country, with reasonable spending on health, however, its health outcomes resemble that of a country that is low / low-middle income. Where has Gabon gone wrong, and what are the challenges that Gabon is facing in improving health outcomes? Gabon is an emerging economy, while it has achieved high economic development it still has not achieved living standards and health outcomes seen in upper middle income countries. Gabon faces low life expectancy (63 years), levels as seen in other low income countries. It is in an early stage of an epidemiological transition. Fertility rates remain high, and mortality rates are starting to decline. It has a high burden from communicable diseases. While HIV incidence and tuberculosis incidence has started to show positive results, Malaria incidence continues to remain high. There are cost-effective interventions available to prevent many of the communicable diseases the country faces. These interventions require multi-sector approaches, behavioral change programs, outreach services, community development, and a primary health care focus
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  • 8
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (49 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Nose, Manabu Triggers of Contract Breach
    Abstract: This paper constructs a large contract-level data set to examine factors that trigger breach of foreign investment contracts. Similar to the case of outright expropriation, political regime type is an important determinant of breach of contract. Furthermore, although investors' bargaining power becomes obsolete as contracts mature, contracts can be designed to mitigate the risk of breach of contract by involving multilateral organizations and creating buffers to absorb commodity price shocks. The paper examines the type of countries prone to contract breaches. After controlling for regional and sector fixed effects, less-democratic and resource-dependent governments are more likely to breach contracts, especially after large global shocks, notably natural disasters
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  • 9
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (30 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Ehrhart, Hélène Does Migration Foster Exports?
    Abstract: This paper aims at assessing the impact of migration on export performance and more particularly the effect of African migrants on African trade. Relying on a new data set on international bilateral migration recently released by the World Bank spanning from 1980 to 2010, the authors estimate a gravity model that deals satisfactorily with endogeneity. The results first indicate that the pro-trade effect of migration is higher for African countries, a finding that can be partly explained by the substitution between migrants and institutions (the existence of migrant networks compensating for weak contract enforcement, for instance). This positive association is particularly important for the exports of differentiated products, suggesting that migrants also play an important role in reducing information costs. Moreover, focusing on intra-African trade, the pro-trade effect of African migrants is larger when migrants are established in a more geographically and ethnically distant country. All these findings highlight the ability of African migrants to help overcome some of the main barriers to African trade: the weakness of institutions, information costs, cultural differences, and lack of trust
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  • 10
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (29 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Cebeci, Tolga Impact of Export Destinations on Firm Performance
    Abstract: This paper evaluates the role of export destinations on productivity, employment, and wages of Turkish firms by comparing the performance of firms that export to low-income destinations and high-income destinations with firms that do not export. A combination of propensity score matching and difference-in-differences methods are employed on a rich set of firm observables, including sector, region, employment, total factor productivity (TFP), capital intensity, wages, support from government, ownership, and the research and development intensity of firms. Four sets of findings emerge from the analysis: i) Export entry has a positive causal effect on firm TFP and employment and this effect is strengthened as a firm continues to export. ii) In contrast, export entry has a moderate wage effect that emerges only with a lag. iii) Unlike exporting to high-income destinations, exporting to low-income destinations does not result in significantly higher firm TFP and wages. iv) The employment effect of exporting to low-income destinations is comparable to that of exporting to high-income destinations
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  • 11
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (47 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Barma, Naazneen H Tailoring Civil Service Pay Analysis and Advice to Context
    Abstract: The adequacy of compensation for government workers and the affordability of the public sector wage bill are important concerns for many developing countries. Suitable pay is considered a necessary-albeit far from sufficient-condition for attracting and retaining skilled public sector staff. This paper makes the case for conducting fine-grained analysis of pay and compensation issues in order to enable an accurate assessment of the challenges faced and thereby to generate good-fit reform recommendations that are both principled and feasible. The first part of the paper focuses on prevalent challenges in pay reform, both contextual and analytical. It builds on the experiences from three very different settings: Armenia, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, and Mongolia. The study begins by surveying some of the common difficulties in conducting granular analysis on civil service compensation. It then outlines a series of methodological approaches that can prove useful in developing comprehensive, targeted, and nuanced pay analyses and discusses how it is possible to overcome potential limitations in practice. The second half of the paper presents a case study of pay and compensation analysis in Lao PDR. The study illuminates how a number of these approaches can be combined in assessing a specific set of pay challenges and generating robust recommendations tailored to context. A brief postscript, with the benefit of hindsight on what subsequently happened on the ground in Lao PDR, reflects on the limitations of technical analysis in motivating reform implementation in practice
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  • 12
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (27 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Yamauchi, Futoshi An Alternative Estimate of School-Based Management Impacts on Students' Achievements
    Abstract: This paper aims to estimate the impact of school-based management on students' test scores in the Philippines. Estimation results using double differencing combined with propensity score matching show that school-based management increases the average national achievement test score by 4.2 points over three years. The increase in mathematics reached 5.7 points. This is larger than the estimate previously reported from the Philippines, probably because the sample schools had learned about implementation of school-based management from experiences accumulated in other provinces that introduced it earlier. The empirical results also show that schools with experienced principals and teachers are eager to introduce school-based management
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  • 13
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (47 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Calderón, César Ride the Wild Surf
    Abstract: Over the past 15 years, gross inflows to industrial and developing countries have enjoyed a wild ride. After reaching record highs in the run-up to the global financial crisis, they collapsed dramatically in 2008-09. As signs of global recovery reappeared, capital inflows resumed although at different speeds. The recovery in flows was faster and sharper in developing countries. This paper aims at understanding the (domestic and external) drivers of these surges in gross inflows using quarterly data for 67 countries from 1975 to 2010. It finds that domestic and external factors have significant explanatory power in driving surges of inflows. This finding holds for the sample of industrial countries whereas domestic factors play a significantly larger role in explaining surges to developing countries. Zooming into the findings shows that: (a) financial booms tend to attract massive capital inflows, (b) surges to either industrial or developing countries are driven by regional contagion, and (c) strong growth and natural resource abundance are keys to attract inflows of foreign capital into developing countries
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  • 14
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (25 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Chatterjee, Urmila Regulation and Noncompliance
    Keywords: Gesellschaftsrecht ; Arbeitsrecht ; Normbefolgung ; Informelle Wirtschaft ; Betriebsgröße ; Produktivität ; Rechtsdurchsetzung ; Indien
    Abstract: Noncompliance with regulations by enterprises is said to be rife in developing countries. Yet there is limited systematic evidence of the magnitude of noncompliance at the enterprise level. Making innovative use of two complementary data sources, this paper quantifies noncompliance for India's Factories Act without the question of illegality ever being raised directly with enterprises. The paper finds that more than twice as many firms are not complying as are complying. Further, the number of noncompliant firms is much larger than the number of firms adjusting out of the regulation. Thus noncompliance with the Factories Act is a key feature of the "missing middle" in India. The paper explores the main trends and patterns of noncompliance and highlights a number of key issues for further analytical and policy research
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  • 15
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (12 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Amin, Mohammad Imports of Intermediate Inputs and Country Size
    Abstract: The paper analyzes the relationship between country size and the use of imported intermediate inputs by firms in 76 developing countries. Recent evidence indicates that the use of imported inputs can have a large, positive effect on productivity and growth, thus motivating a better understanding of the determinants of foreign inputs. The results confirm that, as is the case with exports, use of imported intermediate inputs is much higher at the extensive and intensive margins in small relative to large countries. The results for imported inputs are comparable in magnitude with those for exports
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  • 16
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (22 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Richter, Kaspar Does Growth Generate Jobs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia?
    Abstract: In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the link from growth to jobs was tenuous in the first decade of the transition, giving rise to the notion of jobless growth. Yet, European countries suffered large job losses during the recent recession, suggesting that jobs and growth are closely entwined. This study takes a new look at this issue. It provides a cross-country analysis of the employment intensity of growth over the last decade and a half in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, which includes the 11 Central and Eastern European countries that joined the EU since 2004, the countries of former Yugoslavia, the Countries of Independent States and Turkey. The authors compare these findings with other regions in the world. The paper shows that the responsiveness of employment to output increased in the second decade of the transition. It also finds that in some instances employment growth increases with reforms of labor and product markets, stronger macroeconomic policy frameworks, better governance, and more economic integration and diversification
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  • 17
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (46 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Didier, Tatiana Financial Development in Asia
    Abstract: This paper documents the major trends in financial development in Asia since the early 1990s and the spillovers to firms. It compares Asia with advanced and emerging countries and uses both aggregate and disaggregate indicators. Financial systems in Asia remain less developed than in advanced countries but more developed than in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Bond and stock markets play a larger role and institutional investors have gained importance. Nonetheless, capital-raising activity has not expanded. A few large companies capture most of the issuances. Many secondary markets remain illiquid. The public sector captures a significant share of bond markets. The largest advancements in Asia occurred in China and India. But still in these countries, few large companies use capital markets to expand and grow, becoming much larger than nonuser firms. In sum, Asia's financial systems remain less developed than aggregate measures suggest, with few spillovers to many firms
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  • 18
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (19 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Ceriani, Lidia Individual Diversity and the Gini Decomposition
    Abstract: The paper defines the Gini index as the sum of individual contributions where individual contributions are interpreted as the degree of diversity of each individual from all other members of society. Among various possible forms of individual contributions to the Gini found in the literature, the paper shows that only one form satisfies a set of desirable properties. This form can be used for decomposing the Gini into population subgroups. An empirical illustration shows the use of this approach
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  • 19
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (54 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Aguilar, Arturo Decomposition of Gender Differentials in Agricultural Productivity in Ethiopia
    Abstract: This paper employs decomposition methods to analyze differences in agricultural productivity between male and female land managers in Ethiopia. It employs data from the 2011-2012 Ethiopian Rural Socioeconomic Survey. An overall 23.4 percent gender differential in agricultural productivity is estimated at the mean in favor of male land managers, of which 10.1 percentage points are explained by differences in land manager characteristics, land attributes, and unequal access to resources (the endowment effect). The remaining 13.4 percentage points are explained by unequal returns to productive components, but cannot be easily tied to specific covariates. These results are mainly driven by non-married female managers (mainly single and divorced). Married female managers do not display such disadvantages. Further analysis along the productivity distribution reveals that gender differentials are more pronounced at mid-levels of productivity and that the share of the gender gap explained by the endowment effect declines as productivity increases. Detailed decomposition of estimates at selected points of the agricultural productivity distribution provides valuable information for policy intervention purposes
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  • 20
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (31 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Cavalcanti, Carlos B Measuring the Impact of Debt-Financed Public Investment
    Abstract: While debt-financed productive public investment raises a country's debt ratios in the short run, it can also generate higher growth, revenues, and exports, leading over time to lower debt ratios. This paper develops a framework to assess whether countries meet the conditions for realizing the net benefits over the costs of public investment debt financing. While it is possible to achieve debt sustainability with an appropriate mix of concessional and non-concessional financing, this is a necessary but not sufficient condition. It is also important to ensure the operational viability of public investment projects by having in place adequate project management: (i) project screening and appraisal, (ii) a clear connection between capital and recurrent expenditures once the projects are launched, and (iii) safeguards for appropriate project implementation and facilities operations. To illustrate the strength of these results, the paper carries out three measurement exercises: (a) a simulation of the degree to which the ratio of optimal public investment responds to changes in key parameters related to project management in a general equilibrium model; (b) application of the public investment management (PIMa) index to benchmark a country's public investment management capacity; and (c) presentation of the results of the Investment, Savings, and Macroeconomic Vulnerabilities tool aimed at tracking country choices in public finance and the impact of public projects on private investments
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  • 21
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (38 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Agénor, Pierre-Richard Access to Finance, Product Innovation and Middle-Income Traps
    Abstract: This paper studies interactions between access to finance, product innovation, and labor supply in a two-period overlapping generations model with an endogenous skill distribution and credit market frictions. In the model lack of access to finance (induced by high monitoring costs) has an adverse effect on innovation activity not only directly but also indirectly, because too few individuals may choose to invest in skills. If monitoring costs fall with the number of successful projects, multiple equilibria may emerge, one of which, a middle-income trap, characterized by low wages in the design sector, a low share of the labor force engaged in innovation activity, and low growth. A sufficiently ambitious policy aimed at alleviating constraints on access to finance by innovators may allow a country to move away from such a trap by promoting the production of ideas and improving incentives to invest in skills
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  • 22
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (57 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Burger, Martijn J Surges and Stops in FDI Flows to Developing Countries
    Abstract: This paper investigates the factors associated with foreign direct investment "surges" and "stops," defined as sharp increases and decreases, respectively, of gross foreign direct investment inflows to the developing world and differentiated based on whether these events are led by waves in greenfield investments or mergers and acquisitions. Greenfield-led surges and stops occur more frequently than mergers and acquisitions-led ones and different factors are associated with the onset of the two types of events. Global liquidity is the only factor significantly associated with a surge, regardless of its kind, while decline in global economic growth and a surge in the preceding year are the only predictors of a stop. Greenfield-led surges and stops are more likely in low-income and resource-rich countries than elsewhere. Global growth, financial openness, and domestic economic and financial instability enable mergers and acquisitions-led surges. These results differ from those in the literature on surges and stops and are particularly relevant in countries where foreign direct investments dominate capital flows
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  • 23
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (26 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Schady, Norbert Wealth Gradients in Early Childhood Cognitive Development in Five Latin American Countries
    Keywords: 2003-2010 ; Frühkindliche Bildung ; Bildungsertrag ; Sozialer Status ; Sprache ; Robustes Verfahren ; Lateinamerika
    Abstract: Research from the United States shows that gaps in early cognitive and noncognitive abilities appear early in the life cycle. Little is known about this important question for developing countries. This paper provides new evidence of sharp differences in cognitive development by socioeconomic status in early childhood for five Latin American countries. To help with comparability, the paper uses the same measure of receptive language ability for all five countries. It finds important differences in development in early childhood across countries, and steep socioeconomic gradients within every country. For the three countries where panel data to follow children over time exists, there are few substantive changes in scores once children enter school. These results are robust to different ways of defining socioeconomic status, to different ways of standardizing outcomes, and to selective non-response on the measure of cognitive development
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  • 24
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (39 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Bastos, Paulo Does Energy Consumption Respond to Price Shocks?
    Keywords: Energiekonsum ; Preiselastizität ; Versorgungswirtschaft ; Regulierung ; Regressionsanalyse ; Buenos Aires ; Argentinien
    Abstract: This paper exploits unique features of a recently introduced tariff schedule for natural gas in Buenos Aires to estimate the short-run impact of price shocks on residential energy utilization. The schedule induces a nonlinear and non-monotonic relationship between households' accumulated consumption and unit prices, thus generating exogenous price variation, which is exploited in a regression-discontinuity design. The results reveal that a price increase causes a prompt and significant decline in gas consumption. They also indicate that consumers respond more to recent past bills than to expected prices, which argues against the assumption that consumers have perfect awareness of complex price schedules
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  • 25
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (40 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Cantens, Thomas Customs, Brokers, and Informal Sectors
    Abstract: Based on extensive interviews with informal importers and brokers in Cameroon, this paper explains why customs reform aimed at reducing fraud and corruption may be difficult to achieve. Informal traders and brokers (without licenses) follow various business models and practices, which are product-specific. Overall, what matters first are customs brokers' practices. Information asymmetries mark transactions between brokers and importers and are accompanied by misperceptions of the costs and risks of informal brokers working among informal importers. In a low-governance environment with widespread informal practices, blanket policies should be avoided in order to discourage activities of unprofessional and systematic bribe-taker brokers. It is also essential that customs officials disrupt information asymmetries and better disseminate information to informal importers on customs processes and official costs. Finally, customs should more strongly sanction some informal brokers in order to reduce collusion with some customs officers
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  • 26
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (44 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Dasgupta, Susmita River Salinity and Climate Change
    Abstract: In a changing climate, saltwater intrusion is expected to worsen in low-lying coastal areas around the world. Understanding the physical and economic effects of salinity ingress, and planning adaptation, are key to the long-term development of countries for which sea level rise has been identified as a major risk from climate change. This paper presents a study conducted in Bangladesh, which quantifies the prospective relationship between climate-induced changes in sea level, temperature, rainfall, and altered riverine flows from the Himalayas, and the spread and intensity of salinization on river water in the coastal zone for 2050. The research takes into account the projected land subsidence of the Ganges Delta, as well as alternative scenarios of upstream withdrawal of freshwater. The findings indicate that climate change will cause significant changes in river salinity in the southwest coastal area of Bangladesh by 2050. These changes are likely to lead to significant shortages of drinking water in the coastal urban areas, scarcity of water for irrigation for dry-season agriculture, and significant changes in the coastal aquatic ecosystems. Changes in the availability of freshwater fish will likely affect the composition of capture fishery, although the increase in brackish water will enhance opportunities for brackish water aquaculture. Assessment of location-specific economic impacts of the changes in river salinity, identification of suitable adaptation alternatives, and costing of adaptation are high priorities for further analysis
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  • 27
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (46 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Lim, Jamus Jerome Tinker, Taper, QE, Bye?
    Abstract: This paper examines gross financial inflows to developing countries between 2000 and 2013, with a particular focus on the potential effects of quantitative easing policies in the United States and other high-income countries. The paper finds evidence for potential transmission of quantitative easing along observable liquidity, portfolio balancing, and confidence channels. Moreover, quantitative easing had an additional effect over and above these observable channels, which the paper argues cannot be attributed to either market expectations or changes in the structural relationships between inflows and observable fundamentals. The baseline estimates place the lower bound of the effect of quantitative easing at around 5 percent of gross inflows (for the average developing economy), which suggests that of the 62 percent increase in inflows during 2009-13 related to changing global monetary conditions, at least 13 percent of this was attributable to quantitative easing. The paper also finds evidence of heterogeneity among different types of flows; portfolio (especially bond) flows tend to be more sensitive than foreign direct investment to our measured effects from quantitative easing. Finally, the paper performs simulations that explore the potential effects of the withdrawal of quantitative easing on financial flows to developing countries
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  • 28
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (34 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Betcherman, Gordon Labor Market Regulations
    Abstract: Labor market regulation is a high-profile, and often contentious, area of public policy. Although these regulations have been studied most extensively in developed countries, there is a growing body of literature on their effects in developing countries. This paper reviews that literature and focuses on the impacts of two important types of labor market regulation, minimum wages and employment protection legislation (EPL), on employment, earnings, and productivity. Strong and opposing views exist regarding the costs and benefits of these regulations, but the results of this review suggest that their impacts are generally smaller than the heat of the debates would suggest. Efficiency effects are found sometimes, but not always, and the effects can be in either direction and are usually modest. The distributional impacts of both minimum wage and employment protection legislation are clearer, with two effects predominating: an equalizing effect among covered workers, but with groups such as youth, women, and the less skilled disproportionately outside the coverage and its benefits. Although the overall conclusion is one of modest effects in most cases, the policy implication is not that these regulations do not matter. On the one hand, both minimum wages and EPL can affect distributional objectives. On the other hand, these regulations can generate undesirable economic or social impacts if they are established or operate in ways that exacerbate the labor market imperfections that they were designed to address
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  • 29
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (56 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Baird, Sarah Designing Experiments to Measure Spillover Effects
    Keywords: Öffentliche Sozialleistungen ; Wirkungsanalyse ; Experiment ; Malawi
    Abstract: This paper formalizes the design of experiments intended specifically to study spillover effects. By first randomizing the intensity of treatment within clusters and then randomly assigning individual treatment conditional on this cluster-level intensity, a novel set of treatment effects can be identified. The paper develops a formal framework for consistent estimation of these effects, provides explicit expressions for power calculations, and shows that the power to detect average treatment effects declines precisely with the quantity that identifies the novel treatment effects. A demonstration of the technique is provided using a cash transfer program in Malawi
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  • 30
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (48 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Adoho, Franck The Impact of an Adolescent Girls Employment Program
    Abstract: This paper presents findings from the impact evaluation of the Economic Empowerment of Adolescent Girls and Young Women (EPAG) project in Liberia. The EPAG project was launched by the Liberian Ministry of Gender and Development in 2009 with the goal of increasing the employment and income of 2,500 young Liberian women by providing livelihood and life skills training and facilitating their transition to productive work. The analysis in this paper is based on data collected during two rounds of quantitative surveys in 2010 and 2011, the second of which was conducted six months after the classroom-based phase of the training program ended. Strong impacts are found on the employment and earnings outcomes of program participants, relative to a control group of non-participants. The EPAG program increased employment by 47 percent and earnings by 80 percent. In addition, the impact evaluation documents positive effects on a variety of empowerment measures, including access to money, self-confidence, and anxiety about circumstances and the future. The evaluation finds no net impact on fertility or sexual behavior. At the household level, there is evidence of improved food security and shifting attitudes toward gender norms. These results reinforce the highly positive feedback received from focus group discussions with program participants. Finally, preliminary cost-benefit analysis indicates that the budgetary cost of the EPAG business development training for young women is equivalent to the value of three years of the increase in income among program beneficiaries. These preliminary results provide strong evidence for further investment and research into young women's livelihood programs in Liberia
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  • 31
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (34 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Kaminski, Jonathan Post-Harvest Loss in Sub-Saharan Africa
    Abstract: The 2007-2008 global food crisis has renewed interest in post-harvest loss, but estimates remain scarce, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper uses self-reported measures from nationally representative household surveys in Malawi, Uganda, and Tanzania. Overall, on-farm post-harvest loss adds to 1.4-5.9 percent of the national maize harvest, substantially lower than the Food and Agriculture Organization's post-harvest handling and storage loss estimate for cereals, which is 8 percent. Post-harvest loss is concentrated among less than a fifth of households. It increases with humidity and temperature and declines with better market access, post-primary education, higher seasonal price differences, and possibly improved storage practices. Wider use of nationally representative surveys in studying post-harvest loss is called for
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  • 32
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (22 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Amin, Mohammad Are There More Female Managers in the Retail Sector?
    Abstract: This paper uses firm-level data for 87 developing countries to analyze how the likelihood of a firm having female vs. male top manager varies across sectors. The service sector is often considered to be more favorable toward women compared with men vis-à-vis the manufacturing sector. Although the exploration of the data confirms a significantly higher presence of female managers in services vs. manufacturing, the finding is entirely driven by retail firms, with little contribution from other service sectors, such as wholesale, construction, and other services. The analysis also finds that the higher presence of female managers in the retail sector vs. manufacturing is much higher among the relatively small firms and firms located in the relatively small cities. These findings could serve as useful inputs for the design of optimal policy measures aimed at promoting gender equality in a country
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  • 33
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (25 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Gereffi, Gary Risks and Opportunities of Participation in Global Value Chains
    Abstract: Risk is inherent to the pursuit of opportunity. This paper surveys the recent literature and looks at the risks and opportunities firms and their workers face in the global value chains. First, it examines the risk-sharing mechanisms that firms provide from the national and global perspectives; second, it takes a closer look at the new opportunities and challenges for firms and individuals in the global arena; third, it discusses the role of economic upgrading and social upgrading; and finally it sheds light on how the government can help people manage risks and reap the benefits in the participation of global value chains
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  • 34
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (33 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Newhouse, David Cohort Size and Youth Employment Outcomes
    Abstract: This paper utilizes a cross-country panel of 83 developing countries to examine how changes in cohort size are correlated with subsequent employment outcomes for workers at different ages. The results depend on countries' level of development. In low-income countries, young adults that are born into smaller cohorts are less likely to work, but school attendance remains unchanged. In middle-income countries, young adults in smaller cohorts are less likely to be unemployed and more likely to work outside of agriculture. Neither pattern can be discerned among older adults, although the estimates are imprecise. In sum, reductions in cohort size are associated with moderate improvements in employment outcomes for youth in middle-income countries, but there is scant evidence that these improvements persist into adulthood
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  • 35
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (46 Seiten)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Hallegatte, Stephane Economic Resilience
    Abstract: The welfare impact of a disaster does not only depend on the physical characteristics of the event or its direct impacts in terms of lost lives and assets. Welfare impacts also depend on the ability of the economy to cope, recover, and reconstruct and therefore to minimize aggregate consumption losses. This ability can be referred to as the macroeconomic resilience to natural disasters. Macroeconomic resilience has two components: instantaneous resilience, which is the ability to limit the magnitude of immediate production losses for a given amount of asset losses, and dynamic resilience, which is the ability to reconstruct and recover. Welfare impacts also depend on micro-economic resilience, which depends on the distribution of losses; on households' vulnerability, such as their pre-disaster income and ability to smooth shocks over time with savings, borrowing, and insurance, and on the social protection system, or the mechanisms for sharing risks across the population. The (economic) welfare disaster risk in a country can be reduced by reducing the exposure or vulnerability of people and assets (reducing asset losses), increasing macroeconomic resilience (reducing aggregate consumption losses for a given level of asset losses), or increasing microeconomic resilience (reducing welfare losses for a given level of aggregate consumption losses). The paper proposes rules of thumb to estimate macroeconomic and microeconomic resilience based on the relevant parameters in the economy. It also provides a toolbox of policies to increase macro- or micro-economic resilience and a list of indicators that can be used to build a resilience indicator
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  • 36
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (51 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Clemens, Michael A Why Don't Remittances Appear to Affect Growth?
    Abstract: Although measured remittances by migrant workers have soared in recent years, macroeconomic studies have difficulty detecting their effect on economic growth. This paper reviews existing explanations for this puzzle and proposes three new ones. First, it offers evidence that a large majority of the recent rise in measured remittances may be illusory-arising from changes in measurement, not changes in real financial flows. Second, it shows that even if these increases were correctly measured, cross-country regressions would have too little power to detect their effects on growth. Third, it points out that the greatest driver of rising remittances is rising migration, which has an opportunity cost to economic product at the origin. Net of that cost, there is little reason to expect large growth effects of remittances in the origin economy. Migration and remittances clearly have first-order effects on poverty at the origin, on the welfare of migrants and their families, and on global gross domestic product; but detecting their effects on growth of the origin economy is likely to remain elusive
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  • 37
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (29 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Rozenberg, Julie Transition to Clean Capital, Irreversible Investment and Stranded Assets
    Abstract: This paper uses a Ramsey model with two types of capital to analyze the optimal transition to clean capital when polluting investment is irreversible. The cost of climate mitigation decomposes as a technical cost of using clean instead of polluting capital and a transition cost from the irreversibility of pre-existing polluting capital. With a carbon price, the transition cost can be limited by underutilizing polluting capital, at the expense of a loss in the value of polluting assets (stranded assets) and a drop in income. In contrast, policy instruments that focus on redirecting investments-such as feebates or environmental standards-prevent underutilization of existing capital, avoid stranded assets, and reduce short-term losses; but they reduce emissions more slowly and increase the intertemporal cost of the transition. The paper investigates inter- and intra-generational distributional impacts and the political acceptability of climate change mitigation policy instruments
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  • 38
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (41 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Wagstaff, Adam CATA Meets IMPOV
    Abstract: Up to now catastrophic and impoverishing payments have been seen as two alternative approaches to measuring financial protection in health. Building on the previous literature, the authors propose a unified methodology in which impoverishing and catastrophic payments are mutually exclusive outcomes. They achieve this by expressing out-of-pocket payments as a ratio of ‘discretionary’ consumption, defined as the amount by which total consumption (gross of out-of-pocket payments) exceeds the poverty line. This allows the authors to identify both households who are impoverished by out-of-pocket payments (their ratio exceeds one) and households who are pushed even further into poverty by out-of-pocket payments (their ratio is negative); the authors call such payments ‘immiserizing’. Households experiencing ‘catastrophic’ payments are a subset of those who incur out-of-pocket payments but who are neither impoverished nor immiserized by them. Two alternative definitions of catastrophic payments are offered: those that absorb more than a pre-specified fraction of discretionary consumption; and those that leave a household's nonmedical consumption (total consumption net of out-of-pocket spending) below a pre-specified multiple of the poverty line. The authors also offer a simple financial protection index that reflects the percentages of households incurring immiserizing, impoverishing, catastrophic, non-catastrophic, and zero out-of-pocket payments. They illustrate their unified approach with data from the World Health Survey, using international poverty lines and a catastrophic payment threshold of 40 percent
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  • 39
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (63 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Artuç, Erhan A Global Assessment of Human Capital Mobility
    Keywords: 1990 - 2000 ; Hochqualifizierte Arbeitskräfte ; Internationale Migration ; Arbeitsmobilität ; Brain Drain ; Welt
    Abstract: Discussions of high-skilled mobility typically evoke migration patterns from poorer to wealthier countries, which ignore movements to and between developing countries. This paper presents, for the first time, a global overview of human capital mobility through bilateral migration stocks by gender and education in 1990 and 2000, and calculation of nuanced brain drain indicators. Building on newly collated data, the paper uses a novel estimation procedure based on a pseudo-gravity model, then identifies key determinants of international migration, and subsequently uses estimated parameters to impute missing data. Non-OECD destinations account for one-third of skilled-migration, while OECD destinations are declining in relative importance
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  • 40
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (41 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Khwaja, Munawer Sultan Revenue Potential, Tax Space, and Tax Gap
    Abstract: This paper contributes to the empirical literature on the key determinants of the revenue generating potential in 61 countries. The paper uses a broad set of data and econometric methods to conduct analyses that are of relevance to revenue potential. Earlier studies have not distinguished between the revenue potential based on economic fundamentals of countries and that based on what the legal framework prescribes. This study uses a dual approach to revenue potential to examine the issue. Two sets of variables are used, one related to the intrinsic economic structure and strength of countries that affect revenue potential and the other related to tax policy variables. Accordingly the analysis finds two sets of revenue potentials: one can be termed “revenue potential (economic),” and the other “revenue potential (legal).” The difference between the revenue potential (legal) and the actual revenue collected is commonly understood as the “tax gap.” The difference between the revenue potential (economic) and the actual revenue collected can be termed the “tax space,” the amount of revenue that a country can afford to collect, given its economic strength, not based on what the parliament has mandated. The results show that legally mandated revenue potentials in countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are often higher than the revenue potential based on what the country's economic fundamentals can afford. The paper also makes use of a tax effort index and finds that although many countries are performing close to the revenue potential (economic), it is more difficult to match up to the revenue potential (legal). The relationship between the revenue potential and the shadow economy, value added tax productivity, and some other determinants are examined to test whether some countries are taxing beyond their means
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  • 41
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (31 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Bertaud, Alain Converting Land into Affordable Housing Floor Space
    Abstract: Cities emerge from the spatial concentration of people and economic activities. But spatial concentration is not enough; the economic viability of cities depends on people, ideas, and goods to move rapidly across the urban area. This constant movement within dense cities creates wealth but also various degrees of unpleasantness and misery that economists call negative externalities, such as congestion, pollution, and environmental degradation. In addition, the poorest inhabitants of many cities are often unable to afford a minimum-size dwelling with safe water and sanitation, as if the wealth created by cities was part of a zero-sum game where the poor will be at the losing end. The main challenge for urban planners and economists is reducing cities' negative externalities without destroying the wealth created by spatial concentration. To do that, they must plan and design infrastructure and regulations while leaving intact the self-organizing created by land and labor markets. The balance between letting markets work and correcting market externalities through infrastructure investment and regulation is difficult to achieve. Too often, planners play sorcerer's apprentice when dealing with markets whose functioning they poorly understand. The role of the urban planner is then, first, to better understand the complex interaction between market forces and government interventions, infrastructure investment and regulation, and second, to design these interventions based on precise quantitative objectives. Each city's priorities would depend on its history, circumstances, and political environment. But maintaining mobility and keeping land affordable remains the main urban planning objective common to all cities
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  • 42
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (27 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Desmet, Klaus Analyzing Urban Systems
    Abstract: The trend toward ever greater urbanization continues unabated across the globe. According to the United Nations, by 2025 closes to 5 billion people will live in urban areas. Many cities, especially in the developing world, are set to explode in size. Over the next decade and a half, Lagos is expected to increase its population 50 percent, to nearly 16 million. Naturally, there is an active debate on whether restricting the growth of megacities is desirable and whether doing so can make residents of those cities and their countries better off. When analyzing whether megacities have become too large, policy makers often analyze a single city in depth. But no city is an island: improving urban infrastructure in one city might attract migrants, and a negative shock in one location can be mitigated because people can move to another. Considering the general equilibrium effects of any such urban policy is thus key. That is, when deciding whether to make medium-size cities more attractive, policy makers need to understand how cities of all sizes will be affected. The second section briefly summarizes the theoretical framework and discusses which data are needed. The third section implements the methodology for the benchmark case of the United States. The fourth section does the same for China and Mexico and compares the findings. And the last section concludes. A technical online appendix guides the reader through a practical, step-by-step, discussion of how to do the analysis
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  • 43
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (23 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Keith, Michael The Great Migration
    Abstract: The great 21st-century migration into cities will present both a great challenge for humanity and a significant opportunity for global economic growth. This paper describes the diverse patterns that define this metropolitan migration. It then lays out a framework for understanding the costs and benefits of new arrivals through migration's externalities and the challenges and policy tradeoffs that confront city stakeholders. The paper concludes by suggesting ways municipalities, by optimizing flexibility, can make migration more productive and less destructive in shaping the ‘good city’ and the ‘smart city.’ There are few paths to global economic growth that do not run through cities, and even fewer that do not depend on growing the city in population size, scale, and economic exchange. Historically, cities have grown by concentrating the economic advantages of number and density, the social potential of innovation, and the cultural possibilities of newness. By bringing together the factors of production, land, labor, capital, and enterprise, in ever more recombinant forms, cities offer the possibility of securing new economic advantages and scaling them up
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  • 44
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (22 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Lerner, Josh Entrepreneurship, Public Policy, and Cities
    Abstract: Since the 2008-09 global financial crises, interest among policy makers in promoting innovative, ventures has exploded. The emerging great hubs of entrepreneurial activity, like Bangalore, Dubai, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Singapore, and Tel Aviv, bear the unmistakable stamp of the public sector. Enlightened government intervention played a key role in each region's emergence. But for each effective government intervention, dozens, even hundreds, disappointed, with substantial public spending bearing no fruit. This paper sheds light on how governments can avoid mistakes in stimulating entrepreneurship. In recent decades, efforts have increased to provide the world's poorest with financing and other assistance to facilitate their entry into entrepreneurship or the growth of their small ventures. These are typically subsistence businesses offering services like snack preparation or clothing repair. Such businesses typically allow business owners and their families to get by, but little else. The public policy literature, along with academic studies of new ventures, often does not distinguish among the types of businesses being studied. The author will focus here exclusively on high-potential new ventures and the policies that enhance them. This choice, not intended to diminish the importance of efforts to boost microenterprises, reflects the complexity of the field: the dynamics and issues involving micro firms are quite different from those of their high-potential counterparts. A substantial literature suggests that promising entrepreneurial firms can have a powerful effect in transforming industries and promoting innovation
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  • 45
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (28 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Moretti, Enrico Are Cities the New Growth Escalator?
    Keywords: Wirtschaftswachstum ; Erwerbstätigkeit ; Wirtschaftspolitik ; Kommunalverwaltung ; Stadt ; Entwicklung ; Agglomerationseffekt
    Abstract: Urban areas tend to have much more productive labor and higher salaries than rural areas, and there are vast differences across urban areas. Areas with high salaries and high productivity tend to have employers that invest in much more research and development than areas with low salaries and low productivity. This paper addresses two questions. First, it discusses the causes of these vast geographical differences in wages, human capital, and innovation. The second part of the paper discusses regional economic development policies. The European Union has an even more ambitious program transferring its development funds to regions with below average incomes. Asian countries, especially China, have a variety of special economic zones, designed to attract foreign investment to specific areas. Such regional development policies, often called place-based economic policies, are effectively a form of welfare, targeting cities or regions, not individuals. While such policies are widespread, the economic logic behind them is rarely discussed and even less frequently understood. This paper clarifies when these policies are wasteful, when they are efficient, and who the expected winners and losers are. Understanding when government intervention makes sense and when it does not is a crucial first step in setting sound economic development policies. Local governments can certainly lay a foundation for economic development and create all the conditions necessary for a city's rebirth, including a business climate friendly to job creation
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  • 46
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (59 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Bergkvist, Sofi What a Difference a State Makes
    Abstract: In the mid-2000s, India began rolling out large-scale, publicly-financed health insurance schemes mostly targeting the poor. This paper describes and analyzes Andhra Pradesh's Aarogyasri scheme, which covers against the costs of around 900 high-cost procedures delivered in secondary and tertiary hospitals. Using a new household survey, the authors find that 80 percent of families are eligible, equal to about 68 million people, and 85 percent of these families know they are covered; only one-quarter, however, know that the benefit package is limited. The study finds that, contrary to the rules of the program, patients incur quite large out-of-pocket payments during inpatient episodes thought to be covered by Aarogyasri. In the absence of data and program design features that would allow for a rigorous impact evaluation, a comparison is made between Andhra Pradesh and neighboring Maharashtra over an eight-year period spanning the scheme's introduction. During this period, Maharashtra did not introduce any at-scale health initiative that was not also introduced in Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh other health initiatives were considerably less ambitious and costly than Aarogyasri. The paper finds that Andhra Pradesh recorded faster growth than Maharashtra (even after adjusting for confounders) in inpatient admissions per capita (for all income groups) and in surgery admissions (among the poor only), slower growth in out-of-pocket payments for inpatient care (in total and per admission, but only among the better off), and slower growth in transport and outpatient out-of-pocket costs. The paper argues that these results are consistent with Aarogyasri having the intended effects, but also with minor health initiatives in Andhra Pradesh (especially the ambulance program) playing a role
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  • 47
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (36 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Benjamin, Nancy Informal Economy and the World Bank
    Abstract: Many countries have expressed an interest in the size, performance and motivation of the informal sector, especially where the informal sector provides the livelihood and employment for a critical segment of the population. This essay reviews recent literature, methodologies, and relevant Bank studies as a way to share information with country teams interested in expanding their knowledge of the informal sector and related policy debates. Research in a number of regions points to four main areas where development policy can be improved by taking the informal sector into account. First, improvements should be made along a continuum; the heterogeneity among informal firms points to different policy approaches for different types of firms. Second, there should be public-private collaboration on mutual reforms. Many efforts to improve firm performance focus on elements of the production function (labor skills, credit) while treating government mainly as a cost (taxes, cost of compliance with regulations). Yet research reveals that many characteristics of the public regime strongly influence the decisions of firms regarding informality. Third, research indicates a strong relation between basic skills and labor outcomes, particularly in the informal sector, despite the sector's lower average returns. Research also indicates the benefits of targeted training programs. Business services programs have a decidedly mixed record, yet ongoing research is refining results on what works best. Fourth, informal trade is pervasive in developing countries and the networks developed in informal trade-wholesalers, credit suppliers and money-changers, transporters-are a strong presence in the informal sector. Yet these kinds of complex and nontransparent trading systems can be discouraging to foreign investors and can otherwise undermine trade policy and the international competitiveness of developing countries. The paper concludes with recommendations
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  • 48
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (33 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Sun, Xiaojie The Impact of a Pay-for-Performance Scheme on Prescription Quality in Rural China
    Abstract: In China, health care providers have traditionally been paid fee-for-service and overprescribing and high out-of-pocket spending are common. In this study, township health centers in two counties were assigned almost randomly to two groups: in one, fee-for-service was replaced by a global capitated budget; in the other, by a mix of global capitated budget and pay-for-performance. Performance captured inter alia "irrational" drug prescribing; 20 percent of the global capitated budget was withheld each quarter, points were deducted for failure to meet targets, and some of the withheld budget was returned in line with the points deducted. Outcomes included appropriate prescribing and prescription cost, data on which were obtained by digitizing prescriptions from a month just before the reform and from the same month a year later. Impacts were assessed via multivariate differences-in-differences with township health center fixed effects. To reduce bias from non-randomness in assignment, the sample was trimmed by coarsened exact matching. Pay-for-performance reduced inappropriate prescribing significantly and substantially in the county where the initial level was above the penalty threshold, but end-line rates were still appreciable; no effects were seen in the county where initial levels were around or below the threshold, or on out-of-pocket spending in either county
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  • 49
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (38 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Bown, Chad P What Do We Know about Preferential Trade Agreements and Temporary Trade Barriers?
    Abstract: Two of the most important trade policy developments to take place since the 1980s are the expansion of preferential trade agreements and temporary trade barriers, such as antidumping, safeguards, and countervailing duties. Despite the empirical importance of preferential trade agreements and temporary trade barriers and the common feature that each can independently have quite discriminatory elements, relatively little is known about the nature of any relationships between them. This paper surveys the literature on some of the political-economic issues that can arise at the intersection of preferential trade agreements and temporary trade barriers and uses four case studies to illustrate variation in how countries apply the World Trade Organization's global safeguards policy instrument. The four examples include recent policies applied by a variety of types of countries and under different agreements: large and small countries, high-income and emerging economies, and free trade areas and customs unions. The analysis reveals important measurement and identification challenges for research that seeks to find evidence of systematic relationships between the formation of preferential trade agreements, the political-economic implications of their implementation, and the use of subsequent temporary trade barriers
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  • 50
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (26 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Giné, Xavier Financial (Dis-)Information
    Abstract: An audit study was conducted in peri-urban Mexico to understand the quality of information and products offered to low-income potential customers. Trained auditors visited multiple financial institutions seeking credit and savings products. Consistent with Gabaix and Laibson (2006), staff voluntarily provides little information about avoidable fees, especially to auditors trained to reveal little knowledge about the market. In addition, clients are almost never offered the cheapest product, most likely because staff is incentivized to offer more expensive products that are thus more profitable to the institution. This suggests that disclosure and transparency policies may be ineffective if they undermine the commercial interest of financial institutions
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  • 51
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (52 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Fukase, Emiko Who Will Feed China in the 21st Century?
    Keywords: Ernährungssicherung ; China
    Abstract: This paper uses resource-based cereal equivalent measures to explore the evolution of China's demand and supply for food. Although demand for food calories is probably close to its peak level in China, the ongoing dietary shift to animal-based foods, induced by income growth, is likely to impose considerable pressure on agricultural resources. Estimating the relationship between income growth and food demand with data from a wide range of countries, China's demand growth appears to have been broadly similar to the global trend. On the supply side, output of food depends strongly on the productivity growth associated with income growth and on the country's agricultural land endowment, with China appearing to be an out-performer. The analyses of income-consumption-production dynamics suggest that China's current income level falls in the range where consumption growth outstrips production growth, but that the gap is likely to begin to decline as China's population growth and dietary transition slow down. Continued agricultural productivity growth through further investment in research and development, and expansion in farm size and increased mechanization, as well as sustainable management of agricultural resources, are vital for ensuring that it is primarily China that will feed China in the 21st century
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  • 52
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (37 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Smets, Lodewijk World Bank Lending and the Quality of Economic Policy
    Keywords: Weltbank ; Internationale Organisation ; Entwicklungshilfe ; Wirtschaftspolitik ; Wirtschaftliche Anpassung ; Entwicklungsländer
    Abstract: This study investigates the impact of World Bank development policy lending on the quality of economic policy. It finds that the quality of policy increases, but at a diminishing rate, with the cumulative number of policy loans. Similar results hold for the cumulative number of conditions attached to policy loans, although quadratic specifications indicate that additional conditions may even reduce the quality of policy beyond some point. The paper measures the quality of economic policy using the World Bank's Country Policy and Institutional Assessments of macro, debt, fiscal and structural policies, and considers only policy loans targeted at improvements in those areas. Previous studies finding weaker effects of policy lending on macro stability have failed to distinguish loans primarily intended to improve economic policy from other loans targeted at improvements in sector policies or in public management. The paper also shows that investing in economic policy does not "crowd out" policy improvements in other areas such as public sector governance or human development. The results are robust to using alternative indicators of policy quality, and correcting for endogeneity with system generalized methods of moments and cross-sectional two-stage least squares. The more positive results in the study relative to some previous studies based on earlier loans are consistent with claims by the World Bank that it has learned from its mistakes with traditional adjustment lending
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  • 53
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (87 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Steinbuks, Jevgenijs Confronting the Food-Energy-Environment Trilemma
    Abstract: Economic, agronomic, and biophysical drivers affect global land use, so all three influences need to be considered in evaluating economically optimal allocations of the world's land resources. A dynamic, forward-looking optimization framework applied over the course of the coming century shows that although some deforestation is optimal in the near term, in the absence of climate change regulation, the desirability of further deforestation is eliminated by mid-century. Although adverse productivity shocks from climate change have a modest effect on global land use, such shocks combined with rapid growth in energy prices lead to significant deforestation and higher greenhouse gas emissions than in the baseline. Imposition of a global greenhouse gas emissions constraint further heightens the competition for land, as fertilizer use declines and land-based mitigation strategies expand. However, anticipation of the constraint largely dilutes its environmental effectiveness, as deforestation accelerates prior to imposition of the target
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  • 54
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (51 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Keefer, Philip Radio's Impact on Preferences for Patronage Benefits
    Abstract: Citizens in developing countries support politicians who provide patronage or clientelist benefits, such as government jobs and gifts at the time of elections. Can access to mass media that broadcasts public interest messages shift citizens' preferences for such benefits? This paper examines the impact of community radio on responses to novel survey vignettes that make an explicit trade-off between political promises of jobs for a few versus public services for all. The impact of community radio is identified through a natural experiment in the media market in northern Benin, which yields exogenous variation in access across villages. Respondents in villages with greater radio access are less likely to express support for patronage jobs that come at the expense of public health or education. Gift-giving is not necessarily traded off against public services; correspondingly, radio access does not reduce preferences for candidates who give gifts. The pattern of results is consistent with a particular mechanism for radio's impact: increasing citizens' demand for broadly delivered health and education and thereby shaping their preferences for clientelist candidates
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  • 55
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (31 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Enamorado, Ted Income Inequality and Violent Crime
    Abstract: The relationship between income inequality and crime has attracted the interest of many researchers, but little convincing evidence exists on the causal effect of inequality on crime in developing countries. This paper estimates this effect in a unique context: Mexico's Drug War. The analysis takes advantage of a unique data set containing inequality and crime statistics for more than 2,000 Mexican municipalities covering a period of 20 years. Using an instrumental variable for inequality that tackles problems of reverse causality and omitted variable bias, this paper finds that an increment of one point in the Gini coefficient translates into an increase of more than 10 drug-related homicides per 100,000 inhabitants between 2006 and 2010. There are no significant effects before 2005. The fact that the effect was found during Mexico's Drug War and not before is likely because the cost of crime decreased with the proliferation of gangs (facilitating access to knowledge and logistics, lowering the marginal cost of criminal behavior), which, combined with rising inequality, increased the expected net benefit from criminal acts after 2005
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  • 56
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (23 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Woolcock, Michael Culture, Politics, and Development
    Abstract: Whether in the domains of scholarship or practice, important advances have been made in recent years in our understanding of how culture, politics, and development interact. Today's leading theorists of culture and development represent a fourth distinctive perspective vis-à-vis their predecessors, one that seeks to provide an empirically grounded, mechanisms-based account of how symbols, frames, identities, and narratives are deployed as part of a broader repertoire of cultural "tools" connecting structure and agency. A central virtue of this approach is less the broad policy prescriptions to which it gives rise-indeed, to offer such prescriptions would be something of a contradiction in terms-than the emphasis it places on making intensive and extensive commitments to engaging with the idiosyncrasies of local contexts. Deep knowledge of contextual realities can contribute constructively to development policy by enabling careful intra-country comparisons to be made of the conditions under which variable responses to otherwise similar problems emerge. Such knowledge is also important for discerning the generalizability (or "external validity") of claims regarding the efficacy of development interventions, especially those overtly engaging with social, legal, and political issues
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  • 57
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (26 Seiten)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Avner, Paolo Carbon Price Efficiency
    Abstract: This paper investigates the effect of carbon or gasoline taxes on commuting-related CO2 emissions in an urban context. To assess the impact of public transport on the efficiency of the tax, the paper investigates two exogenous scenarios using a dynamic urban model (NEDUM-2D) calibrated for the urban area of Paris: (i) a scenario with the current dense public transport infrastructure, and (ii) a scenario without. It is shown that the price elasticity of CO2 emissions is twice as high in the short run if public transport options exist. Reducing commuting-related emissions thus requires lower (and more acceptable) tax levels in the presence of dense public transportation. If the goal of a carbon or gasoline tax is to change behaviors and reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions (not to raise revenues), then there is an incentive to increase the price elasticity through complementary policies such as public transport development. The emission elasticity also depends on the baseline scenario and is larger when population growth and income growth are high. In the longer run, elasticities are higher and similar in the scenarios with and without public transport, because of larger urban reconfiguration in the latter scenario. These results are policy relevant, especially for fast-growing cities in developing countries. Even for cities where emission reductions are not a priority today, there is an option value attached to a dense public transport network, since it makes it possible to reduce emissions at a lower cost in the future
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  • 58
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (36 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Khandker, Shahidur R Does Institutional Finance Matter for Agriculture?
    Abstract: Smallholder agriculture in many developing countries has remained largely self-financed. However, improved productivity for attaining greater food security requires better access to institutional credit. Past efforts to extend institutional credit to smaller farmers has failed for several reasons, including subsidized operation of government-aided credit schemes. Thus, recent efforts to expand credit for smallholder agriculture that rely on innovative credit delivery schemes at market prices have received much policy interest. However, thus far the impacts of these efforts are not fully understood. This study examines credit for smallholder agriculture in the context of Uganda, where agriculture is about 35 percent of gross domestic product, most farmers are smallholders, and the country has introduced policies since 2005 to extend credit access to the sector. The analysis uses newly available household panel data from Uganda for 2005-2006 and 2009-2010 to examine (a) whether credit effectively targets agriculture, by examining determinants of borrowing across different sources; (b) agricultural and nonagricultural determinants of supply and demand credit constraints among non-borrowers; and (c) the effects of borrowing and credit constraints on household income, consumption, and agricultural outcomes. The analysis finds that although not many households report borrowing specifically for agriculture, credit is fungible and agricultural outcomes do substantially improve with institutional borrowing, particularly microcredit. Among non-borrowers, supply and demand credit constraints have fallen considerably over the period, particularly in rural areas. Access to institutions and infrastructure play a strong role in alleviating the negative effect of credit constraints on welfare outcomes, as well as determining the source of lending among borrowing households
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  • 59
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (39 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Oseni, Musiliu O Institutional Arrangements for the Promotion of Regional Integration of Electricity Markets
    Abstract: This paper focuses on the institutional arrangements needed for facilitating regional electricity cooperation. The paper begins by discussing the theory of international trade cooperation in electricity, with a view to discussing what preconditions might be important in facilitating wide area trading across national borders. It then discusses two sets of case studies. The first set focuses on three regional developing country power pools-the Southern African Power Pool, the West African Power Pool, and the Central American Power Market. The second set focuses on three regional power pools in more developed countries-one in the United States, the Single Electricity Market in Ireland, and the South East Europe market. These cases highlight the potential and difficulty of having cross-jurisdictional power pools. In the light of the theory and evidence presented, key lessons are drawn in the areas of preconditions for trading, necessary institutional arrangements, practicalities of timetabling, reasons to be hopeful about future prospects, and suggestions for future research
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  • 60
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (30 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Matta, Samer New Coincident and Leading Indicators for the Lebanese Economy
    Abstract: Weak economic statistics in Lebanon impede economic analysis and decision making. This paper presents a new coincident indicator and a leading indicator for the Lebanese economy. A new methodology, based on the National Bureau of Economic Research-Conference Board approach, was used to construct these indicators. The indicators can be used as monthly proxies for the evolution of real gross domestic product with a relatively small time lag (four to five months). Notwithstanding the relatively small sample period, the results reveal promising statistical properties that should make these new indications valuable coincident and leading (one-year ahead) indicators for analyzing the dynamics of the Lebanese economy. However, given limitations on the length of the gross domestic product time series in Lebanon, the accuracy of these indicators in tracking the business cycle of the Lebanese economy is expected to improve over time as more data points become available
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  • 61
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (36 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Forgia, Gerard La Parallel Systems and Human Resource Management in India's Public Health Services
    Abstract: There is building evidence in India that the delivery of health services suffers from an actual shortfall in trained health professionals, but also from unsatisfactory results of existing service providers working in the public and private sectors. This study focusses on the public sector and examines de facto institutional and governance arrangements that may give rise to well-documented provider behaviors such as absenteeism, which can adversely affect service delivery processes and outcomes. The paper considers four human resource management subsystems: postings, transfers, promotions, and disciplinary practices. The four subsystems are analyzed from the perspective of front line workers, that is, physicians working in rural health care facilities operated by two state governments. Physicians were sampled in one post-reform state that has instituted human resource management reforms and one pre-reform state that has not. The findings are based on quantitative and qualitative measurement. The results show that formal rules are undermined by a parallel modus operandi in which desirable posts are often determined by political connections and side payments. The evidence suggests an institutional environment in which formal rules of accountability are trumped by a parallel set of accountabilities. These systems appear so entrenched that reforms have borne no significant effect
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  • 62
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (69 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Giné, Xavier Money or Ideas?
    Abstract: This paper identifies the relative importance of human and physical capital for entrepreneurship. A subset of rural microfinance clients were offered eight full time days of business training and the opportunity to participate in a loan lottery of up to Rs. 100,000 (USD 1,700), about seven times the average loan size. The study finds that business training increased business knowledge, reduced business failure, improved business practices and increased household expenditures by about
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  • 63
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (36 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Ananthpur, Kripa The Anatomy of Failure
    Abstract: Programs that induce citizen participation to improve the quality of government at the local level are the subjects of large amounts of funding and intense debate. This paper combines a randomized control trial of a citizenship training and facilitation program in rural India, with an in-depth, four-year ethnography of the intervention to understand the underlying mechanisms of change. The quantitative data show no impact from the intervention. Household and village survey data from 100 treatment and 100 control villages show considerable improvement across a wide variety of governance and participation indicators over time, but the differences in the changes between treatment and control villages are not statistically significant. The detailed qualitative data from a 10 percent subsample allow us to unpack the reasons why the intervention “failed,” highlighting the role of variations in the quality of facilitation, lack of top-down support, and difficulties with confronting the stubborn challenge of persistent inequality. However, the qualitative investigation also uncovered subtle treatment effects that are difficult to observe in structured surveys. The paper thus demonstrates that a concerted effort to use “thick description” to uncover the process of change using careful and detailed qualitative work can add value to standard impact evaluations
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  • 64
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (34 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Andrés, Luis Measuring the Effect of Internet Adoption on Paper Consumption
    Abstract: A large fraction of the total supply of paper is produced with technologies that have serious adverse consequences on the environment and cause significant health problems, such as cancer. This paper reports on how Internet adoption affects paper consumption. The study used country-level panel data on Internet penetration and paper consumption disaggregated into various paper categories. The empirical strategy is to use fixed-effect models to study whether countries with faster Internet penetration growth have experienced faster declines in paper consumption. The analysis finds that Internet penetration significantly decreases aggregate paper consumption. Further, the estimates show that Internet growth reduces consumption for the paper categories that are more likely to be affected by the diffusion of the Internet (paper used to print newspapers and books and magazines), whereas the growth of the Internet does not have a statistically significant impact on a paper category unlikely to be affected by the Internet (such as sanitary paper)
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  • 65
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (25 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Ghani, Ejaz Can Service Be a Growth Escalator in Low-Income Countries?
    Abstract: Several high-level reports have raised the concern that low-income countries, especially in Africa, are experiencing premature de-industrialization. Have the latecomers to development missed the boat? Are they growing without any structural transformation? Not really. Although their manufacturing sector is not growing, they are benefitting from the Third Industrial Revolution which has enabled them to catch up faster. As services produced and traded across the world expand with advances in technology and globalization, the possibilities for low-income countries to grow faster based on their comparative advantage increases. That comparative advantage can just as easily be in services as in manufacturing. Growth escalators faced by the Lions in Africa may turn out to be different than that experienced by the East Asian Tigers
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  • 66
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (37 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Sánchez Martín, Miguel Eduardo How Regional Integration and Transnational Energy Networks have Boosted FDI in Turkey (And May Cease to Do so)
    Abstract: Turkey has historically struggled to attract foreign investors. This paper argues that not only macroeconomic and political stability, but also regional integration explains the upsurge in foreign direct investment observed since 2005. The analysis draws from a qualitative framework. It discusses how, contrary to the Customs Union Treaty for industrial products with the European Union, the official start of the European Union's accession to negotiations in 2005 encompassed a wide set of reforms in several chapters directly or indirectly affecting the business climate. The reforms helped to enhance foreign direct investment attraction in Turkey. However, it seems that the global economic slowdown starting in 2009 and increasing Euro-skepticism have already started to erode this effect. Only large foreign investment in the energy sector observed in 2009-13, explained by the energy security strategy of the European Union and the privatization agenda, has prevented the collapse of foreign direct investment inflows to Turkey
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  • 67
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (45 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Patlolla, Sandhyarani Managing Quantity, Quality, and Timing in Indian Cane Sugar Production
    Abstract: Private sugar processors in Andhra Pradesh, India use an unusual form of vertical coordination. They issue 'permits' to selected cane growers a few weeks before harvest. These permits specify the amount of cane to be delivered during a narrow time period. This article investigates why processors create uncertainty among farmers using ex post permits instead of ex ante production contracts. The theoretical model predicts that ex post permits are more profitable than ex ante contracts or the spot market under existing government regulations in the sugar sector, which include a binding price floor for cane and the designation of a reserve area for each processor wherein it has a legal monopsony for cane. The use of ex post permits creates competition among farmers to increase cane quality, which increases processor profits and farmer costs. Empirical analysis supports the hypothesis that farmers operating in private factory areas have higher unit production costs than do their counterparts who patronize cooperatives
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  • 68
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (62 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Bown, Chad P Trade Flows and Trade Disputes
    Abstract: This paper introduces a new data set and establishes a set of basic facts and patterns regarding the trade that countries fight about under World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement. The paper characterizes the scope of products, as well as the levels of and changes to the trade values, market shares, volumes, and prices for those goods that eventually become subject to WTO litigation. The first result is striking heterogeneity in the level of market access at stake across disputes: for example, 14 percent of cases over disputed import products feature bilateral trade that is less than
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  • 69
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (20 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Kanbur, Ravi How Useful is Inequality of Opportunity as a Policy Construct?
    Keywords: Bildungschancen ; Einkommensverteilung ; Sozialer Indikator ; Ethik
    Abstract: The academic literature on equality of opportunity has burgeoned. The concepts and measures have begun to be used by policy institutions, including in specific sectors such as health and education. It is argued that one advantage of focusing on equality of opportunity is that policy makers are more responsive to that discourse than to equality of outcomes per se. This paper presents a critique of equality of opportunity in the policy context. Although the empirical analysis to which the literature has given rise is useful and is to be welcomed, current methods for quantifying and implementing the concept with a view to informing the policy discourse face a series of fundamental questions that remain unanswered. Without a full appreciation of these difficulties, the methods may prove to be misleading in the policy context
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  • 70
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (43 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Dutz, Mark A Public and Private Investments in Innovation Capabilities
    Abstract: This paper assembles novel data on the Chilean wine industry to investigate the role of investments in knowledge capital on sales growth in domestic and international markets. The study uses archival data collected from the Government of Chile to compile and categorize public expenditures and programs supporting the Chilean wine industry over the period of 1990-2012 into investment in different types of knowledge capital. These spending categories are related to industry-level sales growth. The paper finds that the most important correlate is spending on research and development. The study also uses data from a new survey of Chilean wine firms to capture information on firm-specific investments in knowledge capital. The findings show that investments in collaboration capital, in particular hiring foreign consultants, as well as participation in international wine fairs are the strongest correlates of growth in export sales, while spending on aspects of branding (local advertising and brand design) are the strongest correlates of domestic market sales growth
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  • 71
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (41 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Devarajan, Shantayanan Budget Rules and Resource Booms
    Abstract: This paper develops a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to analyze and derive simple budget rules in the face of volatile public revenue from natural resources in a low-income country like Niger. The simulation results suggest three policy lessons or rules of thumb. When a resource price change is positive and temporary, the best strategy is to save the revenue windfall in a sovereign fund, and use the interest income from the fund to raise citizens' consumption over time. This strategy is preferred to investing in public capital domestically, even when private investment benefits from an enhanced public capital stock. Domestic investment raises the prices of domestic goods, leaving less money for government to transfer to households; public investment is not 100 percent effective in raising output. In the presence of a negative temporary resource price change, however, the best strategy is to cut public investment. This strategy dominates other methods, such as trimming government transfers to households, which reduces consumption directly, or borrowing, which incurs an interest premium as debt rises. In the presence of persistent (positive and negative) shocks, the best strategy is a mix of public investment and saving abroad in a balanced regime that provides a natural insurance against both types of price shocks. The combination of interest income from the sovereign fund, transfers to households, and output growth brought about by public investment provides the best protective mechanism to smooth consumption over time in response to changing resource prices
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  • 72
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (37 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Beck, Thorsten SME Finance in Africa
    Abstract: This paper uses cross-country firm-level surveys to gauge access to financial services and the importance of financing constraints for African enterprises. The paper compares access to finance in Africa and other developing regions of the world, within Africa across countries, and across different groups of firms. It relates firms' access to finance to firm and banking system characteristics and discusses policy challenges
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  • 73
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (41 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Montenegro, Claudio E Comparable Estimates of Returns to Schooling around the World
    Abstract: Rates of return to investments in schooling have been estimated since the late 1950s. In the 60-plus year history of such estimates, there have been several attempts to synthesize the empirical results to ascertain patterns. This paper presents comparable estimates, as well as a database, that use the same specification, estimation procedure, and similar data for 139 economies and 819 harmonized household surveys. This effort to compile comparable estimates holds constant the definition of the dependent variable, the set of control variables, the sample definition, and the estimation method for all surveys in the sample. The results of this study show that (1) the returns to schooling are more concentrated around their respective means than previously thought; (2) the basic Mincerian model used is more stable than may have been expected; (3) the returns to schooling are higher for women than for men; (4) returns to schooling and labor market experience are strongly and positively associated; (5) there is a decreasing pattern over time; and (6) the returns to tertiary education are highest
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  • 74
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (25 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Iqbal, Farrukh The Reduction of Child Mortality in the Middle East and North Africa
    Abstract: Although child mortality rates have declined all across the developing world over the past 40 years, they have declined the most in the Middle East and North Africa region. This paper documents this remarkable experience and shows that it is broad based in the sense that all countries in the Middle East and North Africa experienced significant declines in child mortality over this period and each country did better than most of its comparators. In looking for the sources of the region's performance edge, the paper confirms the importance of such determinants of child mortality as income growth, education stock, public spending on health, urbanization, and food sufficiency. In addition, the paper establishes that the initial level of mortality has a substantial influence on the pace of subsequent child mortality decline. Of these factors, food sufficiency status is found to contribute to the region's performance edge over all developing regions, while the other factors are found to matter to varying degrees in selected pairwise regional comparisons
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  • 75
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (41 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Rahman, Aminur Investment Climate Reforms and Job Creation in Developing Countries
    Abstract: This paper reviews the literature on the role of the investment climate reforms in job creation. It finds that the current landscape of employment and private sector activity in developing countries indicates a number of potential channels through which investment climate reforms can positively affect job creation. However, rigorous empirical evidence is scarce and most of the relevant studies focus on business entry reforms with a few focusing on business taxation and investment promotion activities. Overall, there is evidence of job creation through business entry, tax reforms, and investment promotion activity in developing countries. Almost all of these evidences are from quasi-experimental studies that are significant improvements over conventional cross-country or cross-section panel data analysis. Still, various endogeneity concerns in these studies cannot be ruled out completely. In assessing job effects, future research should provide deeper insights on the gross versus net and short-run versus long-run job effects and general equilibrium effects of various investment climate reforms related to jobs, productivity, competition, and other developmental outcomes. Another critical agenda for future research is to shed light on which investment climate reforms matter most for spurring the employment and productivity growth of firms in developing countries. The World Bank Group, in partnership with development partners and client government countries, can play a significant role in bridging the current knowledge gap by integrating rigorous evaluation as an integral part of project design and implementation, and improving data quality, particularly through its information and communication technologies-led private sector development reform initiatives
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  • 76
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (35 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Evans, David K Cost-Effectiveness Measurement in Development
    Abstract: As evidence from rigorous impact evaluations grows in development, there have been more calls to complement impact evaluation analysis with cost analysis, so that policy makers can make investment decisions based on costs as well as impacts. This paper discusses important considerations for implementing cost-effectiveness analysis in the policy making process. The analysis is applied in the context of education interventions, although the findings generalize to other areas. First, the paper demonstrates a systematic method for characterizing the sensitivity of impact estimates. Second, the concept of context-specificity is applied to cost measurement: program costs vary greatly across contexts-both within and across countries-and with program complexity. The paper shows how adapting a single cost ingredient across settings dramatically shifts cost-effectiveness measures. Third, the paper provides evidence that interventions with fewer beneficiaries tend to have higher per-beneficiary costs, resulting in potential cost overestimates when extrapolating to large-scale applications. At the same time, recall bias may result in cost underestimates. The paper also discusses other challenges in measuring and extrapolating cost-effectiveness measures. For cost-effectiveness analysis to be useful, policy makers will require detailed, comparable, and timely cost reporting, as well as significant effort to ensure costs are relevant to the local environment
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  • 77
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (52 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Cull, Robert Benchmarking the Financial Performance, Growth, and Outreach of Greenfield Microfinance Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa
    Abstract: In recent years there has been a rapid increase in the presence and growth of greenfield microfinance institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper uses regressions to benchmark those African greenfields relative to other microfinance providers and finds that greenfields grew faster in terms of deposits and lending, improved their profitability to levels comparable to the top microfinance institutions, and substantially increased their lending to women. The effects were especially strong for greenfields that followed a consultant-led model to establish a deep retail banking presence spanning multiple countries, including the creation of extensive branch networks. Although their loan sizes are somewhat larger than those of most African microfinance institutions, indicating less outreach to the poorest market segments, greenfields have achieved rapid gains in financial inclusion on a broad scale
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  • 78
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (43 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Groh, Matthew Testing the Importance of Search Frictions, Matching, and Reservation Prestige through Randomized Experiments in Jordan
    Abstract: Unemployment rates for tertiary-educated youth in Jordan are high, as is the duration of unemployment. Two randomized experiments in Jordan were used to test different theories that may explain this phenomenon. The first experiment tested the role of search and matching frictions by providing firms and job candidates with an intensive screening and matching service based on educational backgrounds and psychometric assessments. Although more than 1,000 matches were made, youth rejected the opportunity to even have an interview in 28 percent of cases, and when a job offer was received, they rejected this offer or quickly quit the job 83 percent of the time. A second experiment built on the first by examining the willingness of educated, unemployed youth to apply for jobs of varying levels of prestige. Youth applied to only a small proportion of the job openings they were told about, with application rates higher for higher prestige jobs than lower prestige jobs. Youth failed to show up for the majority of interviews scheduled for low prestige jobs. The results suggest that reservation prestige is an important factor underlying the unemployment of educated Jordanian youth
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  • 79
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (47 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Cont, Walter Measuring the Impact of a Change in the Price of Cashew Received by Exporters on Farmgate Prices and Poverty in Guinea-Bissau
    Abstract: This paper assesses the impact of a change in the price of cashew received by exporters in general-and by FUNPI, a fund to promote the industrialization of agricultural products, in particular-on farmgate prices and poverty in Guinea-Bissau. The analysis builds a theoretical model of supply chains in export agriculture that includes exporters, traders, and farmers competing in a bilateral oligopoly fashion. The model is adapted to data from the country's cashew sector and a household survey. Given the market structure, a shock on export prices or the introduction of an export tax, such as the FUNPI contribution, has a strong effect on farmgate prices, as farmers absorb about 80 percent of the tax (while exporters take up 13 percent and traders absorb the remaining 7 percent). The effect is uneven across households, as poor rural households are more exposed to price volatility and most cashew farmers are poor. It is estimated that their income falls by 12 percent as a result of the FUNPI contribution. Complementary policies can overcome the effect of the FUNPI surcharge on farmgate prices by aiming for reductions in transport, infrastructure, and transaction costs for traders and exporters. Fostering cashew processing would create added value through a displacement of volume from exporters to processors. The analysis finds it implausible that, under reasonable assumtions, a subsidy would overturn the welfare costs of the FUNPI contribution
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  • 80
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (17 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Woutersen, Tiemen Estimating the Long-Run Impact of Microcredit Programs on Household Income and Net Worth
    Abstract: This paper investigates whether the utilization of microcredit programs has a significant impact on the income and net worth of the participants. Several micro finance institutes are optimistic on the beneficial effects of microcredit programs. Others describe microcredit with interest rates in excess of 20 percent as a poverty trap. This paper uses more than 20 years of panel data on households in Bangladesh to estimate bounds on the causal effects of microcredit programs. The analysis rejects the hypothesis that these microcredit programs are a poverty trap. Moreover, the paper finds moderately positive effects of such programs
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  • 81
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (71 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Wagstaff, Adam Who Benefits from Government Health Spending and Why?
    Abstract: This paper uses a common household survey instrument and a common set of imputation assumptions to estimate the pro-poorness of government health expenditure across 69 countries at all levels of income. On average, government health expenditure emerges as significantly pro-rich, but there is heterogeneity across countries: in the majority, government health expenditure is neither pro-rich nor pro-poor, while in a small minority it is pro-rich, and in an even smaller minority it is pro-poor. Government health expenditure on contracted private facilities emerges as significantly pro-rich for all types of care, and in almost all Asian countries government health expenditure overall is significantly pro-rich. The pro-poorness of government health expenditure at the country level is significantly and positively correlated with gross domestic product per capita and government health expenditure per capita, significantly and negatively correlated with the share of government facility revenues coming from user fees, and significantly and positively correlated with six measures of the quality of a country's governance; it is not, however, correlated with the size of the private sector nor with the degree to which the private sector delivers care disproportionately to the better-off. Because poorly-governed countries are underrepresented in the sample, government health expenditure is likely to be even more pro-rich in the world as a whole than it is in the countries in this study
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  • 82
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (114 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Balistreri, Edward J Reducing Trade Costs in East Africa
    Keywords: Außenwirtschaftsförderung ; Dienstleistungshandel ; Handelsliberalisierung ; Nichttarifäre Handelshemmnisse ; Regionale Wirtschaftsintegration ; Freihandel ; Zollunion ; Ostafrika
    Abstract: There is substantial evidence that with the progressive global decline in tariffs over several decades, trade costs are a more significant barrier to trade than tariffs, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper decomposes trade costs into three categories: costs that can be lowered by trade facilitation, nontariff barriers, and the costs of business services. The paper develops a 10-region, 18-sector, global trade model that includes Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda of the East African Customs Union. The analysis finds that deep integration in the East African Customs Union that lowers these trade costs results in significant gains for the four countries, especially from improved trade facilitation. Extending the lowering of nontariff barriers and services liberalization multilaterally would increase the gains between two and seven times, depending on the country. that the analysis also finds that reducing nondiscriminatory services barriers in Kenya and Tanzania would increase welfare even more than multilateral reduction of discriminatory services barriers. The paper is innovative both conceptually and empirically. It contains foreign direct investment in services and is the first paper to numerically assess liberalization of barriers against domestic and multinational service providers in a multi-sector, multi-region, applied general equilibrium model. The paper uses new databases of the ad valorem equivalents of barriers in services and the time in trade costs. Both databases are shown to be important to the results
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  • 83
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (38 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Ozier, Owen Exploiting Externalities to Estimate the Long-Term Effects of Early Childhood Deworming
    Keywords: Basisgesundheitsversorgung ; Ländliches Gesundheitswesen ; Kinderschutz ; Ernährung ; Bildungsverhalten ; Kenia
    Abstract: This paper investigates whether a large-scale deworming intervention aimed at primary school pupils in western Kenya had long-term effects on young children in the region. The paper exploits positive externalities from the program to estimate the impact on younger children who did not receive treatment directly. Ten years after the intervention, large cognitive effects are found - comparable to between 0.5 and 0.8 years of schooling - for children who were less than one year old when their communities received mass deworming treatment. Because mass deworming was administered through schools, effects are estimated among children who were likely to have older siblings in schools receiving the treatment directly; in this subpopulation, effects are nearly twice as large
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  • 84
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (52 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: McKenzie, David Evidence on Policies to Increase the Development Impacts of International Migration
    Abstract: International migration offers individuals and their families the potential to experience immediate and large gains in their incomes, and offers a large number of other positive benefits to the sending communities and countries. However, there are also concerns about potential costs of migration, including concerns about trafficking and human rights, a desire for remittances to be used more effectively, and concerns about externalities from skilled workers being lost. As a result there is increasing interest in policies which can enhance the development benefits of international migration and mitigate these potential costs. This paper provides a critical review of recent research on the effectiveness of these policies at three stages of the migration process: pre-departure, during migration, and directed toward possible return. The existing evidence base suggests some areas of policy success: bilateral migration agreements for countries whose workers have few other migration options, developing new savings and remittance products that allow migrants more control over how their money is used, and some efforts to provide financial education to migrants and their families. Suggestive evidence together with theory offers support for a number of other policies, such as lowering the cost of remittances, reducing passport costs, offering dual citizenship, and removing exit barriers to migration. Research offers reasons to be cautious about some policies, such as enforcing strong rights for migrants like high minimum wages. Nevertheless, the paper finds the evidence base to be weak for many policies, with no reliable research on the impact of most return migration programs, nor for whether countries should be trying to induce communal remitting through matching funds
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  • 85
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (42 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Larson, Donald F Agricultural Policies and Trade Paths in Turkey
    Abstract: In 1959, shortly after the European Economic Community was founded under the 1957 Treaty of Rome, Turkey applied for Associate Membership in the then six-member common market. By 1963, a path for integrating the economies of Turkey and the eventual European Union had been mapped. As with many trade agreements, agriculture posed difficult political hurdles, which were never fully cleared, even as trade barriers to other sectors were eventually removed and a Customs Union formed. This essay traces the influences the Turkey-European Union economic institutions have had on agricultural policies and the agriculture sector. An applied general equilibrium framework is used to provide estimates of what including agriculture under the Customs Union would mean for the sector and the economy. The paper also discusses the implications of fully aligning Turkey's agricultural policies with the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, as would be required under full membership
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  • 86
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (39 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Azuela, Gabriela Elizondo Performance of Renewable Energy Auctions
    Abstract: This paper considers the design and performance of auction mechanisms used to deploy renewable energy in three emerging economies: Brazil, China, and India. The analysis focuses on the countries' experience in various dimensions, including price reductions, bidding dynamics, coordination with transmission planning, risk allocation strategies, and the issue of domestic content. Several countries have turned to public competitive bidding as a mechanism for developing the renewable generation sector in recent years, with the number of countries implementing some sort of auction procedure rising from nine in 2009 to 36 by the end of 2011 and about 43 in 2013. In general, the use of auctions makes sense when the contracting authority expects a large volume of potentially suitable bids, so that the gains from competition can offset the costs of implementation. A study of the successes and failures of the particular auction design schemes described in this paper can be instrumental in informing future policy making
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  • 87
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (20 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Gaarder, Marie M The Second Wave of Independence
    Abstract: In the 21st century, many developing countries will become emerging markets and will no longer be in need of the carrot-and-stick approach to development assistance most prevalent today: development financing made available conditional on certain policies and interventions. This paper suggests that interactions between development agencies and recipient governments are mostly about inputs deemed (but not known) to contribute to improvements in living standards in recipient countries, rather than outcomes. The paper argues that the development marketplace is beset by market imperfections because of externalities, principal-agent problems, and decision making under uncertainty, which not only make it difficult to achieve the right outcomes, but also take away incentives to learn about outcomes. A fundamental rethink of responsibilities and accountabilities in the development business would make sure that development outcomes are traded in the development marketplace. It would put recipient countries in charge of contracting development agencies to provide these outcomes. Development agencies would commit to and be held financially accountable for outcomes, that is, real improvements in welfare indicators. The paper describes the role of the evaluation function in aligning incentives with the ultimate goal of improving lives and provides examples of emerging solutions
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  • 88
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (54 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Latorre, María C CGE Analysis of the Impact of Foreign Direct Investment and Tariff Reform on Female and Male Wages
    Abstract: This study analyzes the impact on male and female wages of tariff reform and the reduction of regulatory barriers faced by domestic and foreign firms operating in business services. The study applies the model to Tanzania and develops a data set that distinguishes labor and wages by gender for 52 sectors and four skill categories. The model is the first to incorporate modern trade theory to assess the gender implications of trade reform. Given that the Dixit-Stiglitz framework results in productivity gains from additional varieties of services, the analysis finds that real wages increase across all worker categories. However, the increase in wages is higher for males than for females, because business services use males more intensively than females. The most skilled (female and male) workers, who are also the most intensively used in the business services sectors, benefit more from the real increases in wages. The model illustrates that as the development process continues and developing countries become more business service oriented, these sectors demand more educated workers and their wages will increase relative to those of unskilled workers. The policy conclusion from this model is that it is crucial to invest in the education of females so their human capital increases and their skills are more marketable in business services and other more technologically modern occupations. Otherwise, the wage gap between males and females would likely widen further
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  • 89
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (20 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Audoly, Richard Pathways toward Zero-Carbon Electricity Required for Climate Stabilization
    Abstract: This paper covers three policy-relevant aspects of the carbon content of electricity that are well established among integrated assessment models but under-discussed in the policy debate. First, climate stabilization at any level from 2 to 3°C requires electricity to be almost carbon-free by the end of the century. As such, the question for policy makers is not whether to decarbonize electricity but when to do it. Second, decarbonization of electricity is still possible and required if some of the key zero-carbon technologies-such as nuclear power or carbon capture and storage-turn out to be unavailable. Third, progressive decarbonization of electricity is part of every country' cost-effective means of contributing to climate stabilization. In addition, this paper provides cost-effective pathways of the carbon content of electricity-computed from the results of AMPERE, a recent integrated assessment model comparison study. These pathways may be used to benchmark existing decarbonization targets, such as those set by the European Energy Roadmap or the Clean Power Plan in the United States, or inform new policies in other countries. The pathways can also be used to assess the desirable uptake rates of electrification technologies, such as electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, electric stoves and heat pumps, or industrial electric furnaces
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  • 90
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (28 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Andalón, Mabel Weather Shocks and Health at Birth in Colombia
    Abstract: Poor health at birth has negative long-run effects on individual well-being and is also detrimental for intergenerational mobility. This paper examines whether health outcomes at birth are affected by in utero increased exposure to rainfall and temperature shocks in Colombia, one of the countries in the world with the highest incidence of extreme weather events per year. The paper uses a fixed effects design to gauge the causal effect using variation in fetal exposure to these shocks by municipality and date of birth. The analysis finds negative effects of temperature shocks on birth health outcomes and no effect of rainfall shocks. The results indicate that heat waves lead to a 0.5 percentage point reduction in the probability of being born at full term and a decline of 0.4 percentage point in the probability of newborns classified as healthy. The timing of exposure to the shock matters and it matters differently for different outcomes. These findings are critical to prioritize responses to counteract the negative effects of weather, particularly hot shocks, which are projected to become more frequent and intense with changing climate
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  • 91
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (42 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Kattan, Raja Bentaouet Dropout in Upper Secondary Education in Mexico
    Abstract: This study examines the causes and effects of low enrollment and high dropout rates at the upper secondary level in Mexico, where upper secondary completion rates are well below those of other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries and the regional average. Through a disaggregated analysis of coverage, absorption, and dropout data in secondary education at the state level, the study categorizes states according to the stage in the educational cycle at which dropout primarily occurs. The study further examines the academic, social, and economic consequences of dropout through an analysis of employment and youth survey data. The analysis of factors associated with dropout uses self-reported factors as well as estimated probit models that use household data from national surveys and the national standardized test. The central conclusion reached is that in addition to the patterns of dropout found, multiple elements intersect with the patterns to form a complex panorama. Key findings include: i) personal, family, and household economic factors and the prevalence of social risks have a closer association with dropout earlier in the education cycle; ii) the association between dropout and the quality of education has greater intensity in states where dropout occurs primarily during upper secondary education and in those with the lowest upper secondary dropout rates; and iii) as the returns to education grow, dropout is lower; in the case of returns to higher education, the association with dropout is stronger for states that have the highest dropout during upper secondary education. This complexity merits differentiated responses, which are explored through a brief look at relevant international approaches
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  • 92
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (36 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: de Walque, Damien Rewarding Safer Sex
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  • 93
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (32 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Singh, Raju Jan Oil and Civil Conflict
    Abstract: This paper explores the conditions under which public spending could minimize violent conflict related to oil wealth. Previous work suggests that oil can lead to violent conflict because it increases the value of the state as a prize or because it undermines the state' bureaucratic penetration. Yet, little has been said on how oil wealth could be used to prevent the onset of violent conflict through public spending by buying off citizens and elites, increasing state legitimacy by providing basic services, or strengthening the military and security apparatus. The empirical analysis (148 countries over 1960-2009) shows that higher levels of military spending are associated with lower risk of small- and large-scale conflict onset in countries rich in oil and gas. By contrast, in economies with little natural resources, increases in military spending are associated with a higher risk of conflict. Welfare expenditure is associated with lower risk of small-scale conflict, irrespective of the level of oil revenue. However, general government spending does not appear to have any robust mitigating effects
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  • 94
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (30 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Horscroft, Virginia Public Sectors in the Pacific Islands
    Abstract: Public sectors in the Pacific Islands are frequently described as being "too big" and as "crowding out" private sector economic activity. Reducing their size, it follows, would provide much-needed space for private sector expansion and result in higher levels of economic growth. This paper addresses these issues, arguing that there is not a good case for supposing that public sectors in the Pacific Islands are excessively large, when the challenges of public administration and public service delivery in such small, remote, dispersed, and divided states are taken into account. Rather than being preoccupied with their size, it would be more useful to focus on whether the resources available to their public sectors are being used efficiently and effectively to provide an adequate range and quality of administrative functions and public services. The paper also argues that, at a general level, the case for crowding out in the Pacific Islands is not particularly compelling, and that it would be more useful to focus on the trade-offs for the private sector of public sector engagement in any given administrative function or area of service delivery. In light of the arguments put forward, the paper sets out the key elements of a refocused agenda on public sector reform in the Pacific Islands
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  • 95
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (39 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Dillon, Brian Agricultural Factor Markets in Sub-Saharan Africa
    Abstract: This paper uses the recently collected Living Standard Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture Initiative data sets from five countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to provide a comprehensive overview of land and labor market participation by agrarian households and to formally test for failures in factor markets. Under complete and competitive markets, households can solve their consumption and production problems separately, so that household factor endowments do not predict input demand. This paper implements a simple, theoretically grounded test of this separation hypothesis, which can be interpreted as a reduced form test of factor market failure. In all five study countries, the analysis finds strong evidence of factor market failure. Moreover, those failures appear general and structural, not specific to subpopulations defined by gender or geography
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  • 96
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (84 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Kabanda, Patrick The Creative Wealth of Nations
    Abstract: Cultural activities are increasingly noted as drivers of meaningful development. But they have yet to gain a prominent place in the architecture of development strategy. The performing arts, discussed here, exhibit direct effects on social progress and economic growth through trade in music, movies, and temporary work permits for artists, for example. Indirect contributions may also include environmental stewardship, tourism, nation branding, social inclusion, cultural democracy, and shifting cultural behaviors. These direct and indirect contributions are not well documented. As such, how is the creative or cultural sector a crucial part of the wealth of nations, and how could the World Bank Group better leverage the performing arts in its development strategy? This discussion provides a broad snapshot, from arts education, to social inclusion, to international trade in services. Key constraints include: the paucity of data and the difficulty of measuring cultural activities, the challenge of intellectual property, and the unclear benefits of cultural tourism. Part I sets the stage. Part II then provides policy options to foster the performing arts as a promising engine for development. Suggestions include: 1. expanding direct involvement in artistic projects, 2. increasing the use of performing arts to address social issues, 3. collecting data, 4. promoting intellectual property training programs, 5. supporting digital platforms in the developing world that advance indigenous music, and 6. funding studies on such areas as cultural tourism. Progress still needs to be made in the discussion of the diverse ways that the performing arts can contribute to meaningful development
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  • 97
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (48 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Dillon, Andrew Health Information, Treatment, and Worker Productivity
    Abstract: Agricultural and other physically demanding sectors are important sources of growth in developing countries but prevalent diseases such as malaria adversely impact the productivity, labor supply, and choice of job tasks among workers by reducing physical capacity. This study identifies the impact of malaria on worker earnings, labor supply, and daily productivity by randomizing the temporal order at which piece-rate workers at a large sugarcane plantation in Nigeria are offered malaria testing and treatment. The results indicate a significant and substantial intent to treat effect of the intervention-the offer of a workplace-based malaria testing and treatment program increases worker earnings by approximately 10 percent over the weeks following the offer. The study further investigates the effect of health information by contrasting program effects by workers' revealed health status. For workers who test positive for malaria, the treatment of illness increases labor supply, leading to higher earnings. For workers who test negative, and especially for those workers most likely to be surprised by the healthy diagnosis, the health information also leads to increased earnings via increased productivity. Possible mechanisms for this response include selection into higher return tasks within the plantation as a result of changes in the perceived cost of effort. A model of the worker labor decision that allows health expectations partly to determine the supply of effort suggests that, in endemic settings with poor quality health services, inaccurate health perceptions may lead workers to suboptimal labor allocation decisions. The results underline the importance of medical treatment, but also of access to improved information about one's health status, as the absence of either may lead workers to deliver lower effort in lower return jobs
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  • 98
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (25 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Myerson, Roger B Local Foundations for Better Governance
    Abstract: In Localizing Development, Mansuri and Rao survey theory and evidence for development strategies based on local community empowerment. This note extends their theoretical argument by focusing on local government as a vital source of new leadership. Local leaders who provide better public service can prove their qualifications for higher office, but new competition from popular local leaders may be against the interests of incumbent national leaders. Thus, decentralization reforms that could benefit economic development may face powerful resistance. International assistance should promote a balanced development of local and national governments, along with a free press to monitor government at all levels. To better inform public discussions of decentralization reforms, the World Bank should actively support research on comparative subnational politics
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  • 99
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (39 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Ahmed, S. Amer How Significant is Africa's Demographic Dividend for its Future Growth and Poverty Reduction?
    Abstract: Africa will be undergoing substantial demographic changes in the coming decades with the rising working age share of its population. The opportunity of African countries to convert these changes into demographic dividends for growth and poverty reduction will depend on several factors. The outlook will likely be good if African countries can continue the gains already made under better institutions and policies, particularly those affecting the productivity of labor, such as educational outcomes. If African countries can continue to build on the hard-won development gains, the demographic dividend could account for 11 to 15 percent of gross domestic product volume growth by 2030, while accounting for 40 to 60 million fewer poor in 2030. The gains can become much more substantial with even better educational outcomes that allow African countries to catch up to other developing countries. If the skill share of Africa's labor supply doubles because of improvements in educational attainment, from 25 to about 50 percent between 2011 and 30, then the demographic dividends can expand the regional economy additionally by 22 percent by 2030 relative to the base case and reduce poverty by an additional 51 million people
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 100
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (37 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Vieider, Ferdinand M Measuring Risk Preferences in Rural Ethiopia
    Keywords: Risikopräferenz ; Entwicklung ; Experimentelle Ökonomik ; Äthiopien
    Abstract: Risk-aversion has generally been found to decrease in income. This may lead one to expect that poor countries will be more risk-averse than rich countries. Recent comparative findings with students, however, suggest the opposite, giving rise to a risk-income paradox. This paper tests this paradox by measuring the risk preferences of more than 500 household heads spread over the highlands of Ethiopia and finds high degrees of risk tolerance. The paper also finds risk tolerance to increase in income proxies, thus completing the paradox. Using exogenous proxies, the paper concludes that part of the causality must run from income to risk tolerance. The findings suggest that risk preferences cannot be blamed for the failure to adopt new technologies. Alternative explanations are discussed
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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