This paper collects meta data on transport corridor projects financed by the Asian Development Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency, and World Bank and links them to one important wider economic benefit-local economic activity. The meta data cover 47 projects in 16 countries, with...

This paper examines the effect of Basel III implementation on the access to finance of small and medium-size enterprises in 32 emerging markets and developing economies. Analyzing rich, repeated cross-sectional data and a panel of matched firm-bank data in a difference-in-differences setting...

There is growing interest in impact investing, the idea of deploying capital to obtain both financial and social or environmental returns. Examination of every equity investment made by one of the largest and longest-operating impact investors across 130 emerging market and developing economies...

The interest rate pass-through describes how changes in a reference rate (the monetary policy, money market, or T-bill rate) transmit to bank lending rates. This paper reviews the empirical literature on the interest rate pass-through and systematizes it by means of meta-analysis and...

This paper estimates the effect of electricity prices on firm performance, focusing on firm productivity, sales, and employment. Using the World Bank Business Pulse Survey data for a sample of 24 emerging markets and developing economies during 2019-23, the paper estimates the average effect and...

Uzbekistan's transition from planning to market started almost thirty years ago following its independence from the Soviet Union. For most of this period, economic modernization and transformation were stalled, with little change in institutions and policies from those prevailing at the time of...

Uzbekistan is one of the late transition economies. This paper compares the early experience and challenges that Uzbekistan confronts in transitioning its banking system to market principles against the earlier experience with banking transitions from Poland, Russia, and Vietnam, and other...

Since the early 1990s, public-private partnerships (PPPs) in infrastructure provision have been expanding around the world and in South Asia. Well-structured PPPs can unleash efficiency gains in the provision of infrastructure. But PPPs create liabilities for governments, including contingent...

This paper studies the effect of bank ownership on product innovation by borrowing firms, highlighting the role of the state, foreign, and combined foreign-state bank ownership. It uses Enterprise Survey data for more than 22,000 firms in 49 countries from 2016 to 2020, linked to Fitchconnect...

This paper studies the effect of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on the performance of firms in Central Asia. It uses unique data from the Business Pulse Survey run by the World Bank in the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, which tracks the sales and employment-along with other main...