Social protection coverage is quite low in Latin America. This situation, irrespective of the type of pension scheme, represents a challenge for public policy since these low levels of affiliation and irregular contribution histories indicate that pensions will be insufficient in the coming...

Poverty is typically measured in different ways in developing and advanced countries. The majority of developing countries measure poverty in absolute terms, using a poverty line determined by the monetary cost of a predetermined basket of goods. In contrast, most analyses of poverty in advanced...

In this paper, we analyse the potential contribution of the Internet and its commercial application to the development process in poor countries. In historical perspective, the Internet has diffused at a far faster rate than earlier generations of communications technology: from 1990 to early...

With the aid of a computable general equilibrium model, this paper estimates for India the magnitude of spillovers from limiting growth of greenhouse gas emissions to local air quality and the health of the urban population. The most important spillovers are reductions in emissions of...

A basic feature of development dynamics is the reallocation of labour from low– productivity to higher–productivity activities (generally more capital–intensive and also often more skill–intensive). The expansion of skilled labour supply that accompanies rising per capita incomes is both...

This paper discusses major policy issues related to commodity dependence and export diversification in low-income countries. Contrary to some widely-held view, it argues that natural resources are not necessarily a “curse” — that they do not condemn low-income countries to underdevelopment...

Rural areas of the developing world are the last frontier of the information technology revolution. Telephone and internet penetration there remains a small fraction of what it is in the developed world. Limited means of electronic communication with the outside world are just one source of...

The emergence of a “second wave” of developing-country multinational enterprises (MNEs) in a variety of industries is one of the characterizing features of globalisation. These new MNEs did not delay their internationalisation until they were large, as did most of their predecessors, and...

What interest do developing countries have in limiting the growth of their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions? Answering this question is crucial to moving international climate policy negotiations forward. The primary benefits for individual countries of GHG abatement remain highly uncertain and,...

In recent years, as China’s reform of state–owned enterprises (SOEs) has gathered momentum, the number of workers made redundant has been rising. Until now, the dismissals have affected only a fraction of the “surplus labour”, which has been estimated at 20–25 per cent of total...