Focusing on the welfare of the less well off as a measure of real societal progress is the fundamental principle underlying the WBG indicator of "shared prosperity" , namely income growth of the bottom 40 percent in every country. This paper uses a database assembled by the World Bank Group to...

One of the most striking features of economic growth is the process of structural change whereby the share of agriculture in GDP decreases as countries develop. The cross-country growth literature typically estimates an aggregate homogeneous production function or convergence regression model...

Alternative scenarios are considered for reducing by one billion the number of people living below $1.25 a day. The low-case, "pessimistic," path to that goal would see the developing world outside China returning to its slower pace of growth and poverty reduction of the 1980s and 1990s, though...

Interest in assessing the impacts on developing countries of changes in major markets' economic performance has risen in tandem with global economic uncertainty over short- and medium-term growth prospects. This paper proposes a methodology to measure the vulnerability of a country's exports to...

The developing world is experiencing substantial environmental change, and climate change is likely to accelerate these processes in the coming decades. Due to their initial poverty and their relatively high dependence on environmental capital for their livelihoods, the poor are likely to suffer...

Improving the investment climate is among the top priorities in development. The World Bank Group's Doing Business reports have become an important guide and benchmark to inform regulatory reforms aimed at unleashing the potential of the private sector. This paper discusses the potential role of...

During the past decade, cotton prices remained considerably below other agricultural prices (although they recovered toward the end of 2010). Yet, between 2000-04 and 2005-09 world cotton production increased 13 percent. This paper conjectures that biotechnology-induced productivity improvements...