The Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) brings fresh, innovative perspectives to key problems of development. By providing a forum in which policy makers, academics and leading researchers focus on a common theme, ABCDE plays an important role in advancing debate and shaping...

The World Development Report (WDR) has become such a fixture that it is easy to forget the circumstances under which it was born and the Bank's motivation for producing such a report at that time. In the first chapter of this essay, the authors provide a brief background on the circumstances of...

The Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) is one of the best-known conferences for the presentation and discussion of new knowledge on development. It is an opportunity for many of the world's finest development thinkers to present their ideas. The papers in this volume were...

The Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) is one of the best-known conferences for the presentation and discussion of new knowledge on development. It is an opportunity for many of the world's finest development thinkers to present their ideas. The 2007 ABCDE -- held in Tokyo...

The Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) is one of the world's best-known series of conferences for the presentation and discussion of new knowledge on development. It is an opportunity for many of the world's finest development thinkers to present their ideas. In 1999, in...

The new structural economics argues that the best way to upgrade a country's endowment structure is to develop its industries at any specific time according to the comparative advantages determined by its given endowment structure at that time. The economy will be most competitive, the economic...

Since its birth in 1944, the World Bank has had a strong focus on development projects. Yet, it did not have a project evaluation unit until the early 1970s. An early attempt to conceptualize project appraisal had been made in the 1960s by Albert Hirschman, whose undertaking raised high...

The need to construct an effective strategy for industrial development in low-income countries has been largely ignored by development economists because industrial policies have failed in many developing countries. This does not imply, however, that industrial development cannot be promoted....

In a calibrated version of the model, transition paths after a policy change can display rapid growth, as in modern growth 'miracles.' In these economies policies that promote technology inflows are much more effective than subsidies to human capital accumulation in accelerating growth. A policy...

Prevailing economic ideas -- and fashions -- about development have influenced the International Development Association (IDA) since its creation in 1960. The creation of the organization itself is the result of two contemporaneous facts: an urgent need to channel development finance to...