This volume takes a critical look at the country's social protection "system" - broadly defined to include policy interventions, public institutions, and the regulation of private institutions that lower the welfare costs of adverse shocks to income from job loss and extended unemployment,...

This Sixth Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics, one of the world's best-known series of conferences, aims at the presentation, and discussion of new knowledge on development. The theme of the conference was "Doha, Monterrey, and Johannesburg: Are We on Track to Achieve the...

The report analyzes India ' s continued good progress in increasing incomes, and improving living standards over the past decade, which after the setback associated with the 1991 balance of payments crisis, economic growth picked up, income poverty continued to decline, and many social...

Money convenient, and inexpensive means of transferring funds into Afghanistan and among its provinces. They offer a diverse range of financial and non-financial business services at the local, regional, and international level. More recently, they have been instrumental in providing financial...

In this note work from the end of 2001 to August 2002 is updated in an attempt to disentangle potential contagion and spillover effects of the Argentine crisis from other sources of co-movement or market volatility. We also examine the evidence on FDI flows, inquiring about potentially more...

Government debt management has a long tradition. More than three centuries ago, the Bank of England was managing government debt, and the origins of Sweden's National Debt Office go back to 1789.1 In recent years, there has been a move toward building the professionalism of government debt...

This report suggests measures to help Russia develop a formal, competitive labor market over the medium term. The study addresses four major questions: (1) How well has Russia been able to redress the misallocation of labor inherited from its socialist past? (2) Do wages increasingly reflect...

This volume presents a set of Policy Notes prepared by the World Bank's Brazil Team with partners during 2002 as a contribution for the debate of policies by the new federal and state governments elected in October 2002. The objectives of making these Policy Notes available to a broader audience...

In developing countries the twin tasks of building more dispersed and democratic governments and opening economies to freer markets and greater private ownership have been attempted in tandem-and have proved a difficult undertaking. A reduction in barriers to the movement of capital and goods...

Land policies are of fundamental importance to sustainable growth, good governance, and the well-being of, and the economic opportunities open to, both rural and urban dwellers - particularly the poor. To this end, research on land policy, and analysis of interventions related to the subject,...