A richer array of international poverty lines
Is poverty absolute or relative? When we think of (one-dimensional) income poverty, should we define the threshold that separates the poor from the non-poor as the cost of purchasing a fixed basket of...
View ArticleTrade agreements as public goods
If a trade economist were abruptly woken up by somebody shouting, “preferential trade agreements” (PTAs), their first thought is likely to be “trade creation among participants and trade diversion...
View ArticleThe 2017 global poverty update from the World Bank
This year’s global poverty update from the World Bank is a minor one. Until reference year 2008, the World Bank published new poverty estimates every three years, and between 2010 and 2013 we released...
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The power and limits of personal connection
I Will Always Write Back is the true story of Martin Ganda and Caitlin Alifirenka, who became pen pals -- between Zimbabwe and the USA -- in middle (or lower secondary) school. Over time, they learn...
View ArticleAgainst the tide: A look at the countries where poverty has been on the rise,...
The last quarter century saw remarkable progress against extreme poverty, globally. Between 1990 and 2013, the percentage of the world’s population living at or under $1.90/day fell from 35.3% to...
View ArticleSystem-wide education reform is hard – but it is possible
The elusive quest to scale Some 15 years ago, I was in a small town in Hoshangabad district (India) attending a workshop with government schoolteachers, where we were examining student test scores....
View ArticleFinancial globalization: A glass half empty?
For many years, financial globalization has been promoted as a vehicle to raise living standards throughout the world, particularly in developing countries. However, a mounting body of empirical...
View Article“Nudge units” – where they came from and what they can do
You could say that the first one began in 2009, when the US government recruited Cass Sunstein to head The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to streamline regulations. In 2010, the...
View ArticleCommodity prices to continue rising in 2018
Prices for industrial commodities are forecast to level off in 2018 after big increases this year, the World Bank’s October Commodity Markets Outlook says. Oil prices are expected to rise to an average...
View ArticleAnnual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) - Call for papers
The Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE), organized by the World Bank’s Development Economics (DEC) Vice Presidency, is one of the world's leading conference series promoting the...
View ArticleAn Indian government effort to encourage account ownership produces...
Can government policies designed to promote financial inclusion encourage people to open an account at a bank or other financial institution?
View ArticleEnergy and fertilizer prices rose in October, raw materials and precious...
Energy commodity prices increased more than 3 percent in October, a fourth consecutive monthly gain, led by a strengthening in oil, according to the World Bank’s Pink Sheet. Agriculture prices edged...
View ArticleWhere Commodity Prices Are Going, Explained In Nine Charts
The most recent World Bank Commodity Markets Outlook forecasts commodities prices to level off next year after big gains for industrial commodities—energy and metals—in 2017. Commodity prices appear to...
View ArticleUsing satellite data to gauge terrorist incomes
The growing availability of satellite imagery and analysis means that all kinds of things we used to think were hard to quantify, especially in conflict zones, can now be measured systematically. For...
View ArticlePro-market activism: A new role for the state in promoting access to finance
The debate on whether the state should play an active role in broadening access to finance or not is one that has lingered for decades. A recent book (de la Torre, Gozzi, and Schmukler, 2017) argues...
View ArticleHow teaching with the test (not to the test) improves learning
“Test and punish”? There’s a debate raging in American schools today: how (and how much) should children be tested? The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act created a system where all children in all...
View ArticleThe World Bank’s Land and Poverty Conference: 20 years on
Also available in Español |Français In 1999, when a few enthusiasts agreed to meet annually in an effort to base interventions on land, on solid empirical evidence rather than ideology, few would have...
View ArticleIt all comes down to money: Corporate income tax reform and the need for more...
The OECD’s Inclusive Framework on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), which includes over 125 countries, is debating four proposals for corporate tax reform, to update the global tax system to...
View ArticleMoonshot Africa and jobs
Is new technology “transformative” or “disruptive”? I’ve heard this topic hotly debated at meetings both within the World Bank and more broadly. The issue is not just linguistic hair-splitting....
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Keeping it clean: Can blockchain change the nature of land registry in...
The global economy is constantly exposed to disruptive technologies. Take the example of telecommunications: it was not long ago that everything revolved around landlines. Households would go to great...
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