The author presents the view that informal economies arise when governments impose excessive taxes and regulations that they are unable to enforce. The author studies the determinants and effects of the informal sector using an endogenous growth model whose production technology depends...

The author reviews the recent economic research on emerging issues for infrastructure policies affecting poor people in developing countries. His main purpose is to identify some of the challenges the international community, and donors in particular, are likely to have to address over the next...

Argentina was a pioneer of infrastructure reform in the early 1990s. The social dimension of infrastructure services was typically overlooked in the reform process. However, social sensitivities often resurfaced in the years that followed, leading to a series of ad hoc social policy measures...

Labor market integration is typically assumed to improve welfare in the absence of distortions, because it allows labor to move to where returns are highest. The author examines this result in a simple general equilibrium model in the presence of a common property resource: social capital....

The author gives examples of research recently published in professional journals that directly helped, or could help, in formulating policy advice (and perhaps even policymaking). An article by Younger (1992) was helpful in analyzing a problem in Ghana, where aid flows to government crowded out...

This paper contains abstracts of Policy Research working paper series, numbers 2803 - 2856.

The author examines the extent to which micro-credit reduces poverty and vulnerability through a case study of BRAC, one of the largest providers of micro-credit to the poor in Bangladesh. Household consumption data collected from 1,072 households is used to show that the largest effect on...

This paper analyzes the effect of a change in the minimum wage on the earnings of workers in the informal sector, who supposedly are not covered by minimum wage legislation. The standard view of the matter is that a reduction of the minimum wage, which increases employment in the formal sector,...

The Poverty Analysis Macroeconomic Simulator (PAMS) is a model that links standard household surveys with macro frameworks. It allows users to assess the effect of macroeconomic policies-in particular, those associated with Poverty Reduction Strategies papers-on sectoral employment and income,...

This paper contains a numerical listing of working papers produced by the Policy, Planning, and External Affairs Complex. Each citation contains a brief abstract, and the contactpoint for the paper.