2018 ABCDE: Selected papers have now been announced
The Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) is fast approaching. The theme of this year’s conference is "Political Incentives and Development Outcomes" and papers selected for this...
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Energy prices advanced, fertilizer prices declined in April -- Pink Sheet
Energy commodity prices gained 8.2 percent in April, led by a 40 percent increase in U.S. natural gas prices, the World Bank’s Pink Sheet reported. Non-energy prices advanced 1.8 percent while...
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Investment in emerging and developing economies: Accelerating but still subpar
After a prolonged slowdown, investment growth in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) picked up to 4.5 percent in 2017, and is projected to accelerate to 5.2 percent in 2018 and 2019...
View ArticleDo firms benefit from capital inflows?
In 2014, foreign investors invested more than one trillion U.S. dollars into emerging countries. Of those inflows, 90 billion U.S. dollars came in the form of equity financing.On aggregate, capital...
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Oil exporters after the 2014-16 price collapse: In need of deeper reforms
The 70 percent drop in oil prices between mid-2014 and early 2016 was one of the three largest oil-price declines in recent history, and despite a recent recovery, oil prices are still around 30...
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Informing rapid emergency response by phone surveys
In 2017, a severe and prolonged drought had hit countries in Africa and the Middle East, bringing crop shortage, livestock death, water scarcity and disease. Food shortages escalated into near-famine...
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Capital account liberalization and controls: Structural or cyclical policy...
Capital flows to emerging market economies are deemed volatile, driven more by external than domestic factors. Surges in capital flows often generate macroeconomic imbalances in emerging markets,...
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Why commodity prices are rising, in nine charts
Commodity prices strengthened in early 2018, supported by supply and demand factors, including accelerated global growth, which has lifted demand for most industrial commodities, and supply...
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Cigarettes or the Greek Islands? The deal my dad offered me
When I was a teenager in Belgium, my parents wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t become a smoker. At the age of 15, I had tried a few cigarettes with friends and they were worried I would pick up the...
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Divining the future of work
“I like work, it fascinates me,” said Jerome K Jerome. “I can sit and look at it for hours.” We concur with the author of “Three Men in a Boat’, a novel which so fascinated Late Victorian England that,...
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Cigarettes or the Greek Islands? Did the deal my dad offer me have lasting...
In the first part of this blog, I went down memory lane and told you about my teenage years and how my parents had managed to make sure I abstained from tobacco by offering to pay for a high school...
View ArticleWhat’s the latest systems research on the quality of governance?
Blog reader: “Dan! The government is one big system. Why didn’t your blog on the latest research on the quality of governance take this into account?” Dan (Rogger): “Well, typically frontier papers in...
View ArticleWhat are business aspirations worth in developing countries?
Small-scale entrepreneurship is widespread in developing countries, yet very few of these entrepreneurs are successful in growing their businesses beyond initial levels. Many constraints play a role,...
View ArticleWhat’s new in social protection – May edition
Being poor often means being hurt twice: Kenny and Sandefur have a CGD commentary replicating CEQ analysis and showing that tax-transfer systems reduce inequality in the rich world, but often...
View ArticleWhat cannot be measured must still be managed
How do we, as development practitioners charged with designing and implementing projects, really know that these projects are delivering on their intended outcomes and improving beneficiaries’ quality...
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Trade growth: A surprising surge but precarious prospects
Trade unexpectedly rebounded in 2017, after a period of slow growth and despite recent uncertainty about trade policy. Growth in the volume of trade in goods and services jumped to 4.3 percent in...
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Energy prices gain 7 percent in May–Pink Sheet
Energy commodity prices gained more than 7 percent in May, with advances in U.S. natural gas (+27 percent), coal (+12 percent) and oil (+7 percent), the World Bank’s Pink Sheet reported.Non-energy...
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Using satellite imagery to revolutionize the creation of tax maps
Municipalities need recurrent property taxes to finance service delivery The ability for cities to raise revenues in a non-distortionary way for effective urban service delivery and infrastructure is...
View ArticlePrivacy law and services trade: Resolving the conflict
The EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) recently went into effect. You have probably received emails regarding your data resident on email servers and applications. And while the media...
View ArticleHow can more private sector participation in providing adult skills training...
When private sector firms provide skills for adults, most do so through on-the-job training (OJT). However, under what conditions can private sector firms provide more OJT? Investigating this question...
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