Jobs provide higher earnings and better benefits as countries grow, but they are also a driver of development. Poverty falls as people work their way out of hardship and as jobs empowering women lead to greater investments in children. Efficiency increases as workers get better at what they do,...

The past 25 years have witnessed unprecedented changes around the world - many of them for the better. Across the continents, many countries have embarked on a path of international integration, economic reform, technological modernization, and democratic participation. As a result, economies...

This is the twenty-first in the annual series assessing major development issues. This report acknowledges that knowledge, not capital, is the key to sustained economic growth and improvements in human well-being. It distinguishes between two sorts of knowledge:knowledge about technology, called...

World Development Report 1994, the seventeenth in this annual series, examines the link between infrastructure and development and explores ways in which developing countries can improve both the provision and the quality of infrastructure services. In recent decades, developing countries have...

This is the fifteenth in the annual series assessing major development issues. The World Development Report 1992 explores the links between economic development and the environment. The 1990 report on poverty, last year's report on development strategies, and this report constitute a trilogy on...

This report is the fourteenth in an annual series assessing major development issues. This report synthesizes and interprets the lessons of more than forty years of development experience. Together with last year's report on poverty and next year's on the environment, it seeks to provide a...

This report is the thirteenth in the annual series addressing major development issues. This report is about the poor. It is thus about the fundamental issue in economic development: the eradication of poverty from the world. The report defines poverty in broad terms, to include literacy,...

Structural transformation is particularly important for middle income countries. In dealing with the appropriate policies to be associated with structural changes, this report analyzes the processes of industrialization, urbanization, and the sectoral deployment of labor. The challenges...

This first report deals with some of the major development issues confronting the developing countries and explores the relationship of the major trends in the international economy to them. It is designed to help clarify some of the linkages between the international economy and domestic...

The increasing differentiation among developing countries, revealed by many indicators, also suggests that they have need of differing trade and development strategies. The following article reviews the across-the-board advice offered by agencies including the World Bank to “the” developing...