Public health spending is low in emerging and developing economies relative to advanced economies and health outputs and outcomes need to be substantially improved. Simply increasing public expenditure in the health sector, however, may not significantly affect health outcomes if the efficiency...

This brief paper accompanies the Green Energy and Jobs tool, which is a simple excel-based tool to estimate the job-creation potential of greening the electricity sector. Specifically, it calculates the net job gains or losses from increasing the level of energy efficiency, and from increasing...

This paper studies the effect of climate change mitigating policies on innovation in clean energy technologies. Results suggest that the tightening of environmental policies since the early 1990s have made a statistically and economically significant contribution to the increase in clean...

European power markets are in the midst of unprecedented changes, with a record-breaking surge in energy prices.This paper investigates the impact of green power resources on the level and volatility of wholesale electricity prices at a granular level, using monthly observations for a panel of...

This paper describes a new database of major labor and product market reforms covering 26advanced economies over the period 1970-2013. The focus is on large changes in product marketregulation in seven individual network industries, employment protection legislation for regularand temporary...

The paper investigates the economic effects of major product market reforms in some of the historically most protected non-manufacturing industries. It relies on a unique mapping between new annual data on reform shocks and sector-level outcomes for five network industries (electricity and gas,...

High energy costs contribute to dampening Caribbean competitiveness and potential growth. This paper overviews power sector challenges and takes stock of national and regional strategies to address them. It presents recommendations to move the energy agenda forward based on analyses of...

Not anytime soon. Using a novel dataset covering 127 countries and spanning two centuries, we find evidence for an energy Kuznets curve, with an initial decline of energy demand at low levels of per capita income followed by stages of acceleration and then saturation at high-income levels....

Good practice suggests that budget allocations should reflect spending priorities and that spending should provide cost-effective delivery of public goods and services. This paper analyzes the composition of public expenditure in the Slovak Republic. It also assesses the relative efficiency of...

With limited financing options, increasing investment efficiency will be a critical avenue to building infrastructure for many countries, particularly in the context of post-pandemic recovery and rising debt emanating from higher energy costs and other pressures. Estimating investment...