Covers conditions under which public-sector policies, programs, and projects succeed in enhancing the economic activities of poorer groups and micro-regions in developing countries. Topics include local economic development; small enterprises; various forms of collective action; labor and worker...

Women in developing countries invest a larger part of their income in their children’s nutrition, health and education than men (Hoddinott et al., 1995; Strauss et al., 2000; Gammage, 2006; Quisumbing et al., 2006). As a result, financial resources acquired by women bring forth a long-time reduction in...

Amartya Sen, the Nobel economist, explains why mortality should, or could, be an indicator of economic success. While mortality is not in itself an economic phenomenon, the influences that increase or reduce mortality often have distinctly economic causes. Consequently there is a prima facie...

This paper presents the DIGNAR (Debt, Investment, Growth, and Natural Resources) model, which can be used to analyze the debt sustainability and macroeconomic effects of public investment plans in resource-abundant developing countries. DIGNAR is a dynamic, stochastic model of a small open...

We develop a tractable small open-economy model to study the first-round effects of international food price shocks in developing countries. We define first-round effects as changes in headline inflation that, holding core inflation constant, help implement relative price adjustments. The model...

This paper analyzes how differences in legal origin, judicial efficiency, and investor protection affect firm leverage and earnings volatility across developing countries. Using a large number of developing countries, four main findings are highlighted. First, firms in civil legal origin...

The negotiations for a global climate agreement recognize that substantial and additional funds need to be generated for assisting adaptation in developing countries. Currently, the 2% adaptation levy (AL) on the clean development mechanism (CDM) is intended to serve this purpose under the Kyoto...

This paper uses micro-data fromtheWorld Bank Investment Climate Surveys 2002-2006 to investigate how foreign ownership and access to external finance affect the likelihood of manufacturers in emerging markets to export and/or import. Applying propensity score matching to control for differences...