The purpose of this book is to provide a coherent overview of the insolvency systems found around the world. Its intended audience includes academics, judges, lawyers, and policymakers. Its focus is on businesses rather than natural persons. The authors hope to give the reader a sense of some of...

The 2012 annual report of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA) contains messages from both outgoing President Robert B. Zoellick and incoming President Dr. Jim Yong Kim. The Board of Directors statement highlights...

More than 200 million people in the developing world were out of work this year. Over 1 billion are hungry, while millions more are confronting the threat that climate change poses. The United Nations estimates that 884 million people don't have safe drinking water and more than 2.6 billion...

This book covers the early years of the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), commonly known as the World Bank when it first confronted the issue of development as a fundamental part of its mission. The book is mainly concerned with how the Bank interpreted its mission...

This book on micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) finance is intended primarily for government policy makers. It presents a policy framework whereby governments can support increased access by MSME to financial services based on empirical evidence and practices. MSME complain that lack of...

Two ambitious goals guide World Bank Group actions: (i) ending extreme poverty by reducing the percentage of people living on less than $1.25 a day to 3 percent by 2030; and (ii) promoting shared prosperity by fostering income growth for the bottom 40 percent of the population in every country. The...

In the spring of 2012, the Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan and the World Bank commissioned a diagnostic assessment of financial practices and strategies among urban and rural Bhutanese. The resulting survey, the Bhutan financial inclusion focus group survey, represents one of the first...

The little data book is a pocket edition of the global financial development database published as part of the work on the Global Financial Development Report 2014 : financial inclusion. The book has put more emphasis on access indicators and, in particular, includes additional variables...

The Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative has identified the cycle of debt rescheduling and restructurings of many of the poorest countries as a serious development problem. It has mobilized the lender community to restructure loans with the aim of generating debt sustainability: the...

Heavily indebted low-income countries benefited from significant debt relief over the past decade. Under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI), assistance of about $117 billion in nominal terms had been committed to 35 HIPC as of...