Clik here to view.
What drives the radicalization of foreign terrorist recruits?
A lack of economic opportunities in countries located closer to the Syrian Arabic Republic is among the factors explaining Daesh recruiting successes The world has experienced a dramatic increase in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Resilience is more than income – lessons from Accra’s 2015 floods
In June 2015, after two days of heavy rain, flood water washed away Sarah’s small store in Accra, which provided for her family of three (1). The flood that hit the city in June 2015 affected around...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In which countries do children have the best chances to surpass their...
In most economies, parents would like to see their children have a higher standard of living, and with it a better life, than they had themselves. When children are asked, they too tend to consider...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Are the poor getting poorer? A tale of two hemispheres
A casual reader might be forgiven for being confused by the global conversation around poverty and inequality these days. On the one hand, there is relentless talk about rising inequality, and the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Collective action yields positive outcomes for Nepal’s forests
In the 1970s and 1980s, Nepal was faced with large-scale deforestation due to land clearing, and forest degradation caused by fuelwood collection and uncontrolled grazing by villagers who were the de...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Are men the new weaker sex? The rise of the reverse gender gap in education
It is probably fair to say that the World Bank’s latest report on intergenerational mobility - Fair Progress? Economic Mobility across Generations around the World– is the first-ever attempt to paint a...
View ArticleProduct market competition, regulation and inclusive growth
It is hard to overemphasize the role of productivity growth in reducing poverty and raising living standards. Sustained productivity increases have made possible the unprecedented rise in prosperity...
View ArticleWhat’s new in social protection – June edition
Let’s start with social protection in Africa. A new paper by Kagin et al. estimates that in Malawi, each Malawi Kwacha (MK) transferred through the Social Cash Transfer Program generates 1.88 MK,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Automation and innovation: Forces shaping the future of work
IT’S robots that mostly come to mind when you ask people about the future of work. Robots taking our jobs, to be specific. And it’s a reaction that’s two centuries old, in a replay of Lancashire...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Remember to call your grandparents: Multigenerational mobility in the...
A large body of literature has shown that the outcomes of children are tied to the outcomes of their parents or, in other words, that children face different life prospects based on their family...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Should I stay or should I go? How cash transfers can affect migration
With 875 million people “on the move” by 2050, there is an durge of interest on how development policy interacts with such a complex phenomenon. Cash transfers, one of the hottest development topics,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Will you be employed? Skills demanded by the changing nature of work
In 1997, Garry Kasparov, one of the greatest chess players in history, lost a chess match to a supercomputer called Deep Blue. Some years later Kasparov developed “advanced chess,” where a human and a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
For refugees, the average duration of exile is going down. Why is this bad news?
This page in: Français | العربية Two years ago, we published a blog estimating the global average of the duration of exile for refugees, based on data from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Our...
View ArticleWhat lessons for social protection from universal health coverage?
It’s not so long since the days when speaking of ‘universal health coverage’ used to provoke shockwaves. Happily, the principle that “… everyone having access to the health care they need without...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A glimpse into the future of social protection
Your neighbor drives for a ride-sharing company. Your nephew just joined his third start-up. Your daughter lands a job as a freelance journalist. Your street vendor who sells flowers down the street...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Could complex value chains help explain lower export elasticities?
This blog post is based on de Soyres, Frohm, Gunnella and Pavlova (2018), “Bought, Sold and Bought Again: Complex value chains and export elasticities”, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Series...
View ArticleWhat’s new in social protection – combined July/August edition
Let’s kick off with a new flagship report by Beegle et al on social assistance in Africa. Some juicy findings: over 2010-2015, an average of 14 new safety net programs were introduced in Africa...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Religion and widowhood in Nigeria
African widows often face considerable disadvantage relative to married women in their first union. How much so depends on the society they live in, with pronounced hardship in some contexts, yet...
View ArticleSome reflections on pathways out of poverty
Take two numbers: 1 in 3 young people worldwide are not in education, employment or training, and over 875 million people are expected to migrate by 2050. These figures often reflect unfulfilled...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The power of a label: Merit scholarships vs needs-based scholarships?
Labels matter. Girls who are reminded of stereotypes about how girls perform in math do worse on math exams (in some circumstances). Publicly revealing the caste of students in India led to worse...
View Article