The revised Country Private Sector Diagnostic (CPSD) reports seek to unlock private sector–led growth and investment. Prepared jointly by the institutions of the World Bank Group, each report discusses the overall business environment within a country and provides an analysis of specific...

La nueva versión de los diagnósticos del sector privado de los países tiene como objetivo promover el crecimiento y la inversión impulsados por el sector privado. En cada uno de los informes, preparados de manera conjunta por las instituciones del Grupo Banco Mundial, se examina el entorno...

North Macedonia is undergoing a rapid demographic transition characterized by population ageing and a sharp rise in long-term care (LTC) needs. While the total population is projected to decline, the number of older people requiring care is expected to increase substantially over the coming...

This note examines whether public infrastructure investment crowds in private investment in the Western Balkans and how this relationship compares with the EU. Using Eurostat data for 2000-2024 and a sector-level analysis, it finds that higher public infrastructure investment is generally...

This paper investigates the labour market consequences of motherhood in Italy, with a focus on how institutional and local contexts shape the child penalty. Using administrative data from the Italian National Social Security Institute (INPS), we track the labour market trajectories of mothers in...

We study competition between a welfare-maximizing public platform and a profit-maximizing private platform in a two-sided payment market. We characterize the public platform's optimal pricing and show that it balances the benefits of increased competition against the welfare costs of network...

This paper empirically investigates what drives the growth of private businesses in Timor-Leste and the policy actions needed to facilitate growth amid global uncertainty, especially for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). It uses the linear probability model (LPM) to identify...

This report, developed under the World Bank’s technical assistance program “Financial and Private Sector Development Policies for Fostering Sustainable Growth in Brazil,” examines strategies for strengthening disaster risk financing in response to floods. It provides an overview of federal...

Energy security risks and private sector development are inherently intertwined and serve as pivotal determinants in shaping the evolutionary trajectory of the renewable energy (RE) industry, especially in emerging economies, where the transition to sustainable energy constitutes a critical...

We study how variation in the allocation mechanism of public demand shapes firm performance and aggregate productivity. Exploiting the quasi-random implementation of an efficient or lottery-like auction format in the Italian construction sector, we find that when the same amount of public...

The impact of public status on the performance of non-financial Turkish firms during the COVID-19 pandemic is analyzed using a quasi-experimental design that combines propensity score matching (PSM) with difference-in-differences (DiD). Firm performance is evaluated across four dimensions:...

ypical debt sustainability metrics characterize Kenya's sovereign debt as "unsustainable" since around 2019. Further, the data show that, over time, commercial banks' private sector lending has declined while lending to the government has grown. Given these observations, this study examines...

This paper examines the resource mismatch in China's healthcare sector from 2010 to 2019. We use structural efficiency to measure the resource mismatch in the healthcare industry (0.2-0.7). We find that an increase in the proportion of private hospitals decreases the healthcare resource mismatch...

In recent years, Jordan has increasingly strengthened its commitment to enhancing public service delivery through digital public infrastructure (DPI). DPI refers to foundational and reusable digital platforms and building blocks-such as digital ID, digital payments, and data sharing-that...

As disasters caused by natural hazards, health emergencies, and other crises become more frequent and complex, the demand for effective crisis preparedness and response tools has never been greater. In response to these evolving challenges, the World Bank (WB) has continuously adapted its crisis...

This Brief studies patterns of political engagement among private firms in the European Union (EU). Using representative data, allowing for analysis at the level of NUTS2 regional groupings (EU regions varying from about 800,000 to 3 million inhabitants), various patterns of engagement emerge....

Weschle (2024) examines the effect of UK legislators taking private sector jobs while holding office on their parliamentary behaviour. The published analysis employs two-way fixed effects and difference-in-differences as an identification strategy. In that analysis, which we were able to...

Purpose - This study examines the earnings quality of private-subsidiary firms using a large sample data from India. Design/methodology/approach - The impact of parent-subsidiary relationship on earnings quality is examined using two common proxies. Findings are robust to alternative research...

GoBs are goods for which agents have non-monotonic preferences: more is beneficial only up to an ideal level, beyond which additional quantities become undesirable. We analyze public GoBs (non-excludable and non-rival) through a theoretical framework applicable to diverse contexts such as solar...

This paper builds upon the work of McCaffrey (2016) who explores how economics can enhance entrepreneurship education. We extended the work of McCaffrey in two distinct ways. First, we emphasize the economic understanding every private enterprise needs to be successful. Second, we developed...

This paper estimates high-dimensional fixed effects models using detailed administrative data to characterize the public-private wage gap in Lithuania between 2010 and 2020. We quantify that public sector employees earn, on average, 10% more than their private sector counterparts. A...

Taxation is often described as the material expression of the social contract. However, this conceptualization largely reflects the Anglo-European experience and provides limited explanatory power for analysing taxation in African states, which did not experience the type of state-society...