The informal sector is typically characterized as being very heterogeneous and possibly composed of two clearly distinct segments, sometimes called the lower and upper tier. However, empirical evidence shows that even among lower tier entrepreneur's profitability can be quite high. The authors...

The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste is a young, post-conflict nation endowed with significant oil revenues. Timor-Leste has one of the highest birth rates in the world (2.41 percent population growth) with over 44 percent of the population below 15 years of age (Timor-Leste Census, 2010)....

Cash transfers have proliferated in the past decade as key policy instruments to tackle vulnerability and inequality. Payment mechanisms (PMs), the backbone of cash transfers, are the channels through which cash travels from the funding source to the hands of beneficiaries. In theory, the...

This note reviews recent World Bank experience with projects using results-based lending in Social Protection and Labor (SP&L) in preparation for stepped-up engagement under the proposed Program-for-Results (P4R). The P4R is expected to be launched in 2012. Given the already strong use of...

The Sudanese population has suffered from years of conflict, and deep-seated security issues have severely hampered Sudan’s long-term economic stability and social development. As a consequence, Sudan is struggling to meet its MDGs. Since the secessionof South Sudan, Sudan has lost a...

The report lays out options to use social safety nets to meet the goal set by the Government of Botswana to eradicate extreme poverty by 2016 and in a budget neutral way. Introducing a Family Support Grant is argued to be a more efficient way to address absolute poverty by offering a family...

Mass media and social marketing programs are cheap, scalable, and potentially effective means of influencing consumers'financial behavior and decisions. In light of this potential, and in order to provide clear policy direction, this paper provides an overview of the existing and ongoing...

This paper presents a World Bank led and Russia trust fund financed work program to measure financial capability and the effectiveness of financial education in low and middle income countries. The two activities and their staging have been motivated by the lessons of high income countries with...

This paper relies on simple framework to understand the gender wage gap in Macedonia and then simulates how the gender wage gap would behave after the introduction of a minimum wage. First, it presents a new albeit simple decomposition of the wage gap into three factors: (i) a wage level factor,...

The unemployment protection systems that exist in most Latin American economies are generally considered inadequate in terms of providing insurance to workers and are prone to generate stratified labor markets. Recently, research effort and policy interest has turned to Unemployment Insurance...