The 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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Robo-advisors: Investing through machines
Technological innovation in the financial industry has reached the wealth management services industry where automated financial advisors, known as robo-advisors, are starting to compete with human...
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Energy prices rose in March—Pink Sheet
Energy commodity prices rebounded in more than 3 percent in March, led by oil (+4 percent), the World Bank Pink Sheet reported. Coal and natural gas prices (Europe) declined 4 and 14 percent,...
View ArticleWhat does the rise of the robots mean for trade?
Industrial robots, 3D printing, and artificial intelligence are rapidly changing the face of global production and trade. Global sales of industrial robots reached a new record of 387,000 units last...
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We have been here before: Development agencies and disruptive technologies
2000: “Genome science will … revolutionize the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of the most, if not all, human diseases.” President Bill Clinton 2003: “The convergence of nanotechnology with...
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Protection from cyclones: Benefits of integrating green and gray infrastructure
When cyclones strike: massive flooding is a major threat to lives and property in low-lying coastal areas As one of the worst tropical cyclones on record to affect Africa and the entire Southern...
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Shedding light on the informal economy: A different methodology and new data
In Mozambique’s three largest cities (Maputo, Beira, and Nampula), informal businesses—those operating outside formal licensing and registration procedures—outnumber formal firms by a factor of 9 to...
View ArticleWhat have we learned from reviewing 75 studies about interventions to reduce...
Graduating from college remains one of the best routes out of poverty. Recent research shows that returns to higher education are now larger than the returns to any other education sector, and they...
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The Commodity Markets Outlook in six charts
Oil prices will moderate from their current highs and be lower on average in 2019 than in 2018 on slower-then-expected global growth and rising non-OPEC production, according to our latest Commodity...
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Behavioral science in public policy: Future of government?
It is impressive to see that there are more than 202 public entities applying behavioral insights to their policies today. In 2015, the World Bank became one such entity that began to explore the...
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Testing the impact of phone calls on service delivery in India
Before last summer’s planting season, the Indian state of Telangana proposed a new way to help farmers – give them money. Many of Telangana’s farmers are subsistence farmers who often struggle to...
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Oil market outlook: Policies drive prices
This blog is the second in a series of nine blogs on commodity market developments, elaborating on themes discussed in the April 2019 edition of the World bank’s Commodity Markets Outlook. Since our...
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Barriers to urban electrification in Sub-Saharan Africa from the perspective...
If you’re reading this, it’s likely that going about with your daily life is impossible without electricity. And yet, many face this exact challenge. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), 6 out of 10 people...
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Energy prices rise in April—Pink Sheet
Energy commodity prices surged more than 4 percent in April, led by oil (+7.5 percent), the World Bank Pink Sheet reported. However, coal and natural gas prices in the U.S. declined 7 and 10 percent,...
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Natural gas and coal: Plunging prices
This blog is the third in a series of nine blogs on commodity market developments, elaborating on themes discussed in April 2019 edition of the World Bank’s Commodity Markets Outlook. Natural gas and...
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Can regulation promote financial inclusion?
Economic literature shows that financial systems support livelihood enhancement and economic development by offering savings, payment, credit and risk management services to households and firms....
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Food prices: Markets are well-supplied, but trade tensions, energy prices,...
This blog is the fourth in a series of nine blogs on commodity market developments, elaborating on themes discussed in the latest edition of the World Bank’s Commodity Markets Outlook. Food commodity...
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