Informal employment is a widespread phenomenon in Romania and a key challenge for the country’s development. Policies should target two distinct groups: those who voluntarily opt out of the formal system and those with no alternative. Transforming people’s attitudes towards the state and...

Despite growing aid volumes, financing development is becoming more difficult, not less. Better information on private finance flows will help developing-country governments craft more effective policies. Without stronger government leadership, well-intentioned but diverging donor approaches...

Sustainable development requires well co-ordinated and functioning formal and informal institutions. In developing countries, courts, regulations and formal conventions are often observed in the breach or fail to function. By default, informal institutions – tradition, culture, family...

The financing of health care is a major challenge for developing countries, especially since deficiencies in national health systems specifically harm the poor. Innovative financing mechanisms, such as private health insurance, offer benefits and risks. Their implementation requires caution on...

The East Asian development experience is still not well understood – especially the region’s clustered, sequential development process and neighbourhood effects linking economies at different levels of industrial development. Until now, the development impact of OECD-country policies had...

Private business activity, by creating and using “ideas”, drives economic growth in both rich and poor countries. Creating an enabling business environment is necessary but not sufficient for fostering the private sector in poor countries. Open dialogue, transparency, accountability and...

Have you ever wondered how many women are in paid employment compared to men? We know they get unequal wages, but just how unequal is their pay? Meanwhile, who are the managers, and what is their gender makeup? Are women and men entering the higher levels of state in equal numbers?

Globalisation has brought benefits to the economies in the Black Sea Economic Co-operation (BSEC) and Central Asia (CA), but compounded volatility and uncertainty associated with the transition to market economy. Labour markets have been put under pressure, as BSEC-CA countries compete on the...

Migration can strengthen the development process in sending countries. Potential gains from migration are currently insufficiently utilised. More coherence between various policy domains – in particular related to migration, human resource development and the labour market – is a critical...

This policy insight introduces the Gender, Institutions and Development Data Base: a new tool to determine and analyse obstacles to women's economic development.