The increase in female labor force participation is among the most salient economic and social transformations in the world over the last fifty years, and Latin America is no exception. In this regard, the gender gap in educational attainment has not only narrowed, but it has reversed itself in...

A well-functioning institutional framework can result in higher levels of foreign direct investment. It requires several factors such as a shared strategic vision, solid institutions capable of delivering on their specific mandates and collaborating beyond their walls, and a strong political and...

Governments increasingly use risk-based regulation (RBR) to adapt their degree of regulatory control to the actual risks posed by industry sectors, economic activities, and business establishments. Risk-based regulation aims to protect public goods, such as safety, health, and the environment,...

After the Arab Spring, Tunisia urgently needed to create productive jobs and economic opportunities for its young population. Attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) in priority sectors was a key pillar of the Government’s strategy to deliver this job agenda. With the support of the World...

Political risks covers a wide range of issues, and this note focuses on a subset of political risk: the risks that arise from government actions, whether political or regulatory, that can affect the profitability of an investment in a foreign country. Policies adopted and implemented by...

Business safety inspections are commonly cited as one of the most important bureaucratic barriers to doing business around the developing world (World Bank 2019, 2020). In Peru, the business safety inspection system is characterized by low compliance with established norms, misaligned incentives...

Interventions to incentivize business formalization over the past decades have shown mixed results (Bruhn and McKenzie, 2013; Bruhn and McKenzie, 2018; Floridi et al., 2019) and brought limited knowledge on how to address informality in a systematic way. Adding to the challenge is determining whether...

Research shows that investment promotion agencies (IPAs) may be the best public institutions to meet government objectives for attracting, establishing, retaining, expanding, and linking productive private investment. As part of this, IPAs need to provide relevant, high-quality services to...

Developing countries are increasingly offering tax breaks to attract investors and pursue various policy objectives such as encouraging investments in research and development (R and D) and increasing exports. Such incentives, however, can be very costly to governments. Too often, developing...

A well-functioning institutional framework can result in higher levels of foreign direct investment. It requires several factors such as a shared strategic vision, solid institutions capable of delivering on their specific mandates and collaborating beyond their walls, and a strong political and...