Can perceptions data help us understand investment climate constraints facing the private sector? Or do firms simply complain about everything? In this paper, the authors provide a picture of how firms' views on constraints differ across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using the World Bank's...

This paper considers approaches towards improving the predictability of aid to low income countries, with a special focus on budget support. In order to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, the donor community is increasing aid flows while pushing for more coordination...

The objective of the South Africa Investment Climate Assessment (ICA) is to evaluate the investment climate in South Africa in all its operational dimensions and to promote policies to strengthen the private sector. The investment climate is made up of the many location-specific factors that...

Many countries in Africa suffer high rates of underemployment or low rates of productive employment; many also anticipate large numbers of people to enter the workforce in the near future. This paper asks the question: Are African firms creating fewer jobs than those located elsewhere? And, if...

This article takes an integrated approach to evaluating the interaction of initial conditions, political change, reforms and economic performance in a unified framework covering 28 transition economies in East Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Former Soviet Union (FSU). Initial...

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...

A long-standing question in social science is to what extent differences in management cause differences in firm performance. To investigate this, the authors ran a management field experiment on large Indian textile firms, providing free consulting on modern management practices to a randomly...

The tenth in series of impact notes profiles early results from an ongoing randomized experiment, which is the first such experiment with large firms. Early results show how much difference improving management practices can make. Recent measurement has found that the majority of firms in...

This article takes an integrated approach to evaluating the interaction of initial conditions, political change, reforms and economic performance in a unified framework covering 28 transition economies in East Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and the fsu. Initial conditions and economic policy...