This note starts from the premise that policy makers invariably make mistakes, both intentional and unintentional. That requires shifting the focus from one-time choice of winners (sectors, industries...
In the decade leading to the recent commodity boom, which peaked in 2007-08, several resource-rich, low-income countries displayed high rates of gross domestic product (GDP) growth while social indicators...
This note analyzes the trends and evolution of public spending in the agriculture sector in Indonesia, as well as its impact on agriculture growth during the period 1976 to 2006. The authors demonstrate...
Recent events have rekindled interest in the role of primary commodities in development. Was the boom in commodity prices from around 2003 through 2008 just a cyclical event, or does it suggests that prices...
The structural adjustment programs of the 1980s, promoted as a viable alternative to tax-based financing of public services, called for cost recovery measures such as the imposition of school fees, which...
A recent paper has highlighted some close correspondences between economic performance during the present world recession and that during the early months of the great depression that began in late 1929...
While the term 'fiscal space' is new, the issue is quite old. Fiscal space refers to availability of budgetary resources for a specific purpose, typically growth-enhancing investment uses, without jeopardizing...
While there are strong theoretical arguments for ways in which public spending influences growth, robust empirical links have been difficult to establish. More recently, many of the methodological problems...
This note describes a framework for linking fiscal policy and growth issues in low-income countries. The framework has been developed in the context of a recently, completed Public Expenditure Management...
This issue of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network (PREM) notes includes the following headings: Why does subnational fiscal sustainability analysis matter? Basic framework of subnational...
The purpose of this discussion paper is modest: (i) examine the main features of the traditional concept and categories of odious debts, and briefly examine whether a rule allowing the repudiation of odious...
This note presents a financial tracking methodology developed by the World Bank's Indonesia country team. Following the tsunami and the subsequent earthquakes in Nias (2005) and Yogyakarta (2006), the...
Protracted civil war destroyed Sierra Leone's physical and social infrastructure. The peace agreement of July 1999 provided an opportunity for the World Bank to prepare a program of support for economic...
Protracted civil war destroyed Sierra Leone's physical and social infrastructure. The peace agreement of July 1999 provided an opportunity for the World Bank to prepare a program of support for economic...
Protracted civil war destroyed Sierra Leone's physical and social infrastructure. The peace agreement of July 1999 provided an opportunity for the World Bank to prepare a program of support for economic...
Protracted civil war destroyed Sierra Leone's physical and social infrastructure. The peace agreement of July 1999 provided an opportunity for the World Bank to prepare a program of support for economic...
The size of the global illicit drug industry and its direct and indirect costs are very large and worthy of serious attention from both research and policy perspectives. The adverse development effects...
This Note is a part of a larger study of technological adaptation and catch-up in high-growth, nontraditional export sectors. Such study examined ten sectors in economies with a reasonably stable macro...
Around the world-not just in Latin America -central bankers are looking uneasily at the growing share of foreign currency-denominated deposits in their banking systems. They have a sense that these deposits...
Although trade liberalization can create jobs and raise incomes, these benefits can easily be undermined if trade transactions involve excessive costs and delays-reducing a country's export competitiveness...