This report, developed by the World Bank's Global Indicators Group, provides a comprehensive analysis of building energy codes (BECs) across 88 countries, highlighting their critical role in driving energy efficiency and sustainable development. With buildings accounting for 37 percent of global...

"This paper first describes those features of the electricity supply industry that make a prospective market monitoring process essential to a well-functioning wholesale market. Some of these features are shared with the securities industry, although the technology of electricity production and...

The Aral Sea Basin consists of the drainage area of two major rivers, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya. The rivers originate in the Tien Shan Mountains and the Pamirs, and run through Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. An estimated 116 k

"The authors study the effect of reorganization costs on the efficiency of bankruptcy laws. They develop a simple model that predicts that in a regime with high costs, the law fails to achieve the efficient outcome of liquidating unviable businesses and reorganizing viable ones. The authors test...

"This paper studies the decision of firms to extend trade credit to customers and its relation with their financing decisions. The authors use a novel firm-level database of Chinese SMEs with unique information on market power in both output and input markets and on the amount, terms, and...

"The author tests the hypothesis that during systemic banking crises, access to finance is opportunistically tightened by incumbents to eliminate or weaken competition from mainly young firms. He finds this to be especially true in more corrupt countries. To do so, he uses a methodology similar...

"Infrastructure projects are often technically complicated and highly customized. Therefore, procurement competition tends to be limited. Competition is the single most important factor toward auction efficiency and anti-corruption. However, the degree of competition realized is closely related...

"Competition in public procurement auctions in the water supply and sanitation sector is largely limited. This is partly because of high technical complexity and partly because of auction design flaws. The division of lot contracts is an important policy choice for auctioneers to achieve...

"Limited competition has been a serious concern in infrastructure procurement. Importantly, however, there are normally a number of potential bidders initially showing interest in proposed projects. This paper focuses on tackling the question why these initially interested bidders fade out. An...

These Standard Bidding Documents (SBD) have been prepared by the World Bank for use by borrowers and their implementing agencies in the procurement of goods through International Competitive Bidding (ICB). The procedures and practices presented in this document have been developed through broad...