The state of national labor markets has always been a concern for governments and development agencies such as the World Bank. Key labor market indicators, such as the rate of unemployment, send signals about the health of an economy and mirror citizens' attitudes. Being gainfully employed is an...

The report starts with an overview and introduces the main findings. It addresses major constraints, instruments, and outcomes important to unleash the potential of infrastructure investments and policy fine-tuning. Chapter one discusses the infrastructure and growth nexus, given the country's...

Front Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Executive Summary -- Three Pathways for a City Diagnostic -- Karachi's Declining Economic Performance but Strong Poverty Reduction -- Karachi's Low Livability and Level of Basic Services -- Karachi's High Vulnerability to...

This book takes a look at the past to gain insights for the future. Nearly 30 years ago, when the world urban population was only about half of the 3 billion that it is today, when most Less Developed Countries (LDCs) were primarily rural, and before the wave of decentralization of the 1980s and...

The objective of the study is to examine, identify, and quantify the factors behind Africa's high prices for road transport. Such prices are a major obstacle to economic growth in the region, as shown in several studies. For example, Amjadi and Yeats (1995) concluded that transport costs in...

By reviewing the Bank's experience with shelter lending, this paper seeks to address the question of whether the Bank has helped developing countries deal with the inevitable problems that arise with urbanization, particularly problems with the provision of shelter. It reviews the Bank's...

This book reviews Latin America's experience with infrastructure reform over the last fifteen years. It argues that the region's infrastructure has suffered from public retrenchment and unrealistic expectations about private involvement. Poor infrastructure now hampers productivity, growth, and...

This volume is organized as follows. Chapter one address two questions: how has spatial concentration evolved with growth and development, and what are the efficiency implications of too much or too little spatial concentration? This chapter summarizes the various models that analyze growth by...