Download or read book Impact Evaluation in Practice Second Edition written by Paul J. Gertler and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2016-09-12 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of the Impact Evaluation in Practice handbook is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to impact evaluation for policy makers and development practitioners. First published in 2011, it has been used widely across the development and academic communities. The book incorporates real-world examples to present practical guidelines for designing and implementing impact evaluations. Readers will gain an understanding of impact evaluations and the best ways to use them to design evidence-based policies and programs. The updated version covers the newest techniques for evaluating programs and includes state-of-the-art implementation advice, as well as an expanded set of examples and case studies that draw on recent development challenges. It also includes new material on research ethics and partnerships to conduct impact evaluation. The handbook is divided into four sections: Part One discusses what to evaluate and why; Part Two presents the main impact evaluation methods; Part Three addresses how to manage impact evaluations; Part Four reviews impact evaluation sampling and data collection. Case studies illustrate different applications of impact evaluations. The book links to complementary instructional material available online, including an applied case as well as questions and answers. The updated second edition will be a valuable resource for the international development community, universities, and policy makers looking to build better evidence around what works in development.
Download or read book The World Bank Group A to Z 2016 written by World Bank Group and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2015-10-02 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The World Bank Group A to Z provides the most concise and essential information about the mission, policies, procedures, products, and services of the new World Bank Group. This second edition is a follow-up to the first volume released for the 2014 Annual Meetings. The World Bank Group A to Z series builds on previous editions of A Guide to the World Bank to include features not found in its predecessors including: a graphical introduction to the World Bank Group, highlighting the Bank Group's goals, financials, regions, and results; examples and photos of Bank Group projects and programs; and tools to guide you to the information you are looking for (even if you don’t know exactly what that is). It also reflects the wide-ranging reforms that have taken place within the World Bank Group in recent years, including the launch of the new World Bank Group Strategy; new approaches to development; the establishment of new Global Practice Groups and Cross Cutting Solutions Areas; and the goal of becoming a "Solutions Bank," one that will marshal the vast reserves of evidence and experiential knowledge across the five World Bank Group agencies and apply them to local problems. With more than 280 entries arranged in encyclopedic A-to-Z format, readers can easily find up-to-date information about the five agencies of the World Bank Group and the wide range of areas in which they work: from agriculture, education, energy, health, social protection and labor to gender, jobs, conflict, private sector development, trade, water and climate change. The World Bank Group's work in all of these areas now focuses on two new twin goals: eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity of the poorest 40 percent in every developing country.
Download or read book The Global Findex Database 2017 written by Asli Demirguc-Kunt and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2011 the World Bank—with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—launched the Global Findex database, the world's most comprehensive data set on how adults save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. Drawing on survey data collected in collaboration with Gallup, Inc., the Global Findex database covers more than 140 economies around the world. The initial survey round was followed by a second one in 2014 and by a third in 2017. Compiled using nationally representative surveys of more than 150,000 adults age 15 and above in over 140 economies, The Global Findex Database 2017: Measuring Financial Inclusion and the Fintech Revolution includes updated indicators on access to and use of formal and informal financial services. It has additional data on the use of financial technology (or fintech), including the use of mobile phones and the Internet to conduct financial transactions. The data reveal opportunities to expand access to financial services among people who do not have an account—the unbanked—as well as to promote greater use of digital financial services among those who do have an account. The Global Findex database has become a mainstay of global efforts to promote financial inclusion. In addition to being widely cited by scholars and development practitioners, Global Findex data are used to track progress toward the World Bank goal of Universal Financial Access by 2020 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The database, the full text of the report, and the underlying country-level data for all figures—along with the questionnaire, the survey methodology, and other relevant materials—are available at www.worldbank.org/globalfindex.
Download or read book World Development Report 1978 written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1978 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first report deals with some of the major development issues confronting the developing countries and explores the relationship of the major trends in the international economy to them. It is designed to help clarify some of the linkages between the international economy and domestic strategies in the developing countries against the background of growing interdependence and increasing complexity in the world economy. It assesses the prospects for progress in accelerating growth and alleviating poverty, and identifies some of the major policy issues which will affect these prospects.
Download or read book Exploring Universal Basic Income written by Ugo Gentilini and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2019-11-25 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Universal basic income (UBI) is emerging as one of the most hotly debated issues in development and social protection policy. But what are the features of UBI? What is it meant to achieve? How do we know, and what don’t we know, about its performance? What does it take to implement it in practice? Drawing from global evidence, literature, and survey data, this volume provides a framework to elucidate issues and trade-offs in UBI with a view to help inform choices around its appropriateness and feasibility in different contexts. Specifically, the book examines how UBI differs from or complements other social assistance programs in terms of objectives, coverage, incidence, adequacy, incentives, effects on poverty and inequality, financing, political economy, and implementation. It also reviews past and current country experiences, surveys the full range of existing policy proposals, provides original results from micro†“tax benefit simulations, and sets out a range of considerations around the analytics and practice of UBI.
Download or read book Global Productivity written by Alistair Dieppe and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2021-06-09 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The COVID-19 pandemic struck the global economy after a decade that featured a broad-based slowdown in productivity growth. Global Productivity: Trends, Drivers, and Policies presents the first comprehensive analysis of the evolution and drivers of productivity growth, examines the effects of COVID-19 on productivity, and discusses a wide range of policies needed to rekindle productivity growth. The book also provides a far-reaching data set of multiple measures of productivity for up to 164 advanced economies and emerging market and developing economies, and it introduces a new sectoral database of productivity. The World Bank has created an extraordinary book on productivity, covering a large group of countries and using a wide variety of data sources. There is an emphasis on emerging and developing economies, whereas the prior literature has concentrated on developed economies. The book seeks to understand growth patterns and quantify the role of (among other things) the reallocation of factors, technological change, and the impact of natural disasters, including the COVID-19 pandemic. This book is must-reading for specialists in emerging economies but also provides deep insights for anyone interested in economic growth and productivity. Martin Neil Baily Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution Former Chair, U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisers This is an important book at a critical time. As the book notes, global productivity growth had already been slowing prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and collapses with the pandemic. If we want an effective recovery, we have to understand what was driving these long-run trends. The book presents a novel global approach to examining the levels, growth rates, and drivers of productivity growth. For anyone wanting to understand or influence productivity growth, this is an essential read. Nicholas Bloom William D. Eberle Professor of Economics, Stanford University The COVID-19 pandemic hit a global economy that was already struggling with an adverse pre-existing condition—slow productivity growth. This extraordinarily valuable and timely book brings considerable new evidence that shows the broad-based, long-standing nature of the slowdown. It is comprehensive, with an exceptional focus on emerging market and developing economies. Importantly, it shows how severe disasters (of which COVID-19 is just the latest) typically harm productivity. There are no silver bullets, but the book suggests sensible strategies to improve growth prospects. John Fernald Schroders Chaired Professor of European Competitiveness and Reform and Professor of Economics, INSEAD
Download or read book The Changing Wealth of Nations 2018 written by Glenn-Marie Lange and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Countries regularly track gross domestic product (GDP) as an indicator of their economic progress, but not wealth—the assets such as infrastructure, forests, minerals, and human capital that produce GDP. In contrast, corporations routinely report on both their income and assets to assess their economic health and prospects for the future. Wealth accounts allow countries to take stock of their assets to monitor the sustainability of development, an urgent concern today for all countries. The Changing Wealth of Nations 2018: Building a Sustainable Future covers national wealth for 141 countries over 20 years (1995†“2014) as the sum of produced capital, 19 types of natural capital, net foreign assets, and human capital overall as well as by gender and type of employment. Great progress has been made in estimating wealth since the fi rst volume, Where Is the Wealth of Nations? Measuring Capital for the 21st Century, was published in 2006. New data substantially improve estimates of natural capital, and, for the fi rst time, human capital is measured by using household surveys to estimate lifetime earnings. The Changing Wealth of Nations 2018 begins with a review of global and regional trends in wealth over the past two decades and provides examples of how wealth accounts can be used for the analysis of development patterns. Several chapters discuss the new work on human capital and its application in development policy. The book then tackles elements of natural capital that are not yet fully incorporated in the wealth accounts: air pollution, marine fi sheries, and ecosystems. This book targets policy makers but will engage anyone committed to building a sustainable future for the planet.
Download or read book What a Waste 2 0 written by Silpa Kaza and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2018-12-06 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Solid waste management affects every person in the world. By 2050, the world is expected to increase waste generation by 70 percent, from 2.01 billion tonnes of waste in 2016 to 3.40 billion tonnes of waste annually. Individuals and governments make decisions about consumption and waste management that affect the daily health, productivity, and cleanliness of communities. Poorly managed waste is contaminating the world’s oceans, clogging drains and causing flooding, transmitting diseases, increasing respiratory problems, harming animals that consume waste unknowingly, and affecting economic development. Unmanaged and improperly managed waste from decades of economic growth requires urgent action at all levels of society. What a Waste 2.0: A Global Snapshot of Solid Waste Management to 2050 aggregates extensive solid aste data at the national and urban levels. It estimates and projects waste generation to 2030 and 2050. Beyond the core data metrics from waste generation to disposal, the report provides information on waste management costs, revenues, and tariffs; special wastes; regulations; public communication; administrative and operational models; and the informal sector. Solid waste management accounts for approximately 20 percent of municipal budgets in low-income countries and 10 percent of municipal budgets in middle-income countries, on average. Waste management is often under the jurisdiction of local authorities facing competing priorities and limited resources and capacities in planning, contract management, and operational monitoring. These factors make sustainable waste management a complicated proposition; most low- and middle-income countries, and their respective cities, are struggling to address these challenges. Waste management data are critical to creating policy and planning for local contexts. Understanding how much waste is generated—especially with rapid urbanization and population growth—as well as the types of waste generated helps local governments to select appropriate management methods and plan for future demand. It allows governments to design a system with a suitable number of vehicles, establish efficient routes, set targets for diversion of waste, track progress, and adapt as consumption patterns change. With accurate data, governments can realistically allocate resources, assess relevant technologies, and consider strategic partners for service provision, such as the private sector or nongovernmental organizations. What a Waste 2.0: A Global Snapshot of Solid Waste Management to 2050 provides the most up-to-date information available to empower citizens and governments around the world to effectively address the pressing global crisis of waste. Additional information is available at http://www.worldbank.org/what-a-waste.
Download or read book The World Bank and Education written by Steven J. Klees and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-09-07 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World Bank and Education: Book Blurb For more than three decades, the World Bank has been proposing global policies for education. Presented as research-based, validated by experience, and broadly applicable, these policies are ideologically driven, insensitive to local contexts, and treat education as independent of international dynamics and national and local economies and cultures. Target countries, needing resources and unable to generate comparable research, find it difficult to challenge World Bank recommendations. The World Bank and Education: Critiques and Alternatives represents a powerful challenge to World Bank proposals. Probing core issues—equity, quality, finance, privatization, teaching and learning, gender, and human rights—highlights the disabilities of neoliberal globalization. The authors demonstrate the ideological nature of the evidence marshaled by the World Bank and the accompanying policy advice. Addressing key education issues in developing countries, the authors’ analyses provide tools for resisting and rejecting generic policy prescriptions as well as alternative directions to consider. Robert Arnove, in his preface, says, “whether the Bank is responsive to the critiques and alternatives brilliantly offered by the present authors, the book is certain to influence development and education scholars, policymakers, and practitioners around the globe.”
Download or read book High Growth Firms written by Arti Grover Goswami and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Remarkably, a small fraction of firms account for most of the job and output creation in high-income and developing countries alike. Does this imply that the path to enabling more economic dynamism lies in selectively targeting high-potential firms? Or would pursuing broad-based reforms that minimize distortions be more effective? Inspired by these questions, this book presents new evidence on the incidence, characteristics, and drivers of high-growth firms based on in-depth studies of firm dynamics in Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, Tunisia, and Turkey. Its findings reveal that high-growth firms are not only powerful engines of job and output growth but also create positive spillovers for other businesses along the value chain. At the same time, the book debunks several myths about policies to support firm dynamism that focus on outward characteristics, such as firm size, sector, location, or past performance. Its findings show that most firms struggle to sustain rapid rates of expansion and that the relationship between high growth and productivity is often weak. Consequently, the book calls for a shift toward policies that improve the quality of firm growth by supporting innovation, managerial skills, and firms’ ability to leverage global linkages and agglomeration. To help policy makers structure policies that support firm growth, the book proposes a new ABC framework of growth entrepreneurship: improving Allocative efficiency, encouraging Business-to-business spillovers, and strengthening firm Capabilities. This book is the third volume of the World Bank Productivity Project, which seeks to bring frontier thinking on the measurement and determinants of productivity to global policy makers. 'Policy makers often get carried away by the disproportionate contributions of high-growth firms to job and output growth and commit to pursuing policies targeting the potential ‘stars.’ This book separates fact from fiction underpinning such interventions through a comprehensive analysis of high-growth firms across a range of developing countries, making a compelling argument that public policy to pick prospective winners is neither possible nor desirable. Policy makers would be wise to consult its arguments and policy advice when designing the next generation of policies to support the growth of firms.' William R. Kerr Professor of Business Administration, Harvard University; author of The Gift of Global Talent: How Migration Shapes Business, Economy and Society 'How to ignite and sustain high firm growth has eluded both economic analysis and thought leaders in policy and business. Through its meticulous and thoughtful analysis, this important new book provides a tractable framework to guide policy to harness the growth and productivity potential of firms in the developing-country context.' David Audretsch Distinguished Professor and Director of the Institute for Development Strategies, Indiana University .
Download or read book World Development Report 2009 written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2008-11-04 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rising densities of human settlements, migration and transport to reduce distances to market, and specialization and trade facilitated by fewer international divisions are central to economic development. The transformations along these three dimensions density, distance, and division are most noticeable in North America, Western Europe, and Japan, but countries in Asia and Eastern Europe are changing in ways similar in scope and speed. 'World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography' concludes that these spatial transformations are essential, and should be encouraged. The conclusion is not without controversy. Slum-dwellers now number a billion, but the rush to cities continues. Globalization is believed to benefit many, but not the billion people living in lagging areas of developing nations. High poverty and mortality persist among the world's 'bottom billion', while others grow wealthier and live longer lives. Concern for these three billion often comes with the prescription that growth must be made spatially balanced. The WDR has a different message: economic growth is seldom balanced, and efforts to spread it out prematurely will jeopardize progress. The Report: documents how production becomes more concentrated spatially as economies grow. proposes economic integration as the principle for promoting successful spatial transformations. revisits the debates on urbanization, territorial development, and regional integration and shows how today's developers can reshape economic geography.
Download or read book Imperial Nature written by Michael Goldman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is the World Bank so successful? How has it gained power even at moments in history when it seemed likely to fall? This pathbreaking book is the first close examination of the inner workings of the Bank, the foundations of its achievements, its propensity for intensifying the problems it intends to cure, and its remarkable ability to tame criticism and extend its own reach. Michael Goldman takes us inside World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C., and then to Bank project sites around the globe. He explains how projects funded by the Bank really work and why community activists struggle against the World Bank and its brand of development. Goldman looks at recent ventures in areas such as the environment, human rights, and good governance and reveals how—despite its poor track record—the World Bank has acquired greater authority and global power than ever before. The book sheds new light on the World Bank’s role in increasing global inequalities and considers why it has become the central target for anti-globalization movements worldwide. For anyone concerned about globalization and social justice, Imperial Nature is essential reading.
Download or read book At Your Service written by Gaurav Nayyar and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2021-10-18 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Manufacturing-led development has provided the traditional model for creating jobs and prosperity. But in the past three decades the conventional pattern of structural transformation has changed, with the services sector growing faster than the manufacturing sector. This raises critical questions about the ability of developing economies to close productivity gaps with advanced economies and to create good jobs for more people. At Your Service? The Promise of Services-Led Development (www.worldbank.org/services-led-development) assesses the scope of a services-driven development model and policy directions that can maximize the model’s potential.
Download or read book Inclusive Green Growth written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inclusive Green Growth: The Pathway to Sustainable Development makes the case that greening growth is necessary, efficient, and affordable. Yet spurring growth without ensuring equity will thwart efforts to reduce poverty and improve access to health, education, and infrastructure services.
Download or read book Reinventing the World Bank written by Jonathan R. Pincus and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Largely ignored for decades, the World Bank increasingly finds itself at the center of an international political maelstrom. Attacked by the Right as the last bastion of socialism and by the Left as an instrument of economic imperialism, the Bank has struggled to adapt to a changing post-Cold War era. Still the world's leading development institution in terms of size and influence, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development's failure to articulate and implement a convincing strategy to reduce world poverty has left it vulnerable to the charge that, at least in its present form, it has outlived its usefulness.In a book neither funded nor controlled by its subject, leading North American and British scholars critically examine the World Bank. They contend that an institution that has grown to unmanageable proportions through internally driven change cannot realistically be expected to effect its own reform program. All the Bank's previous attempts at self-redesign have failed, and the contributors argue it is beyond reform; it must be reinvented.Reinvention involves a thoroughgoing and externally controlled process of transformation, starting from basic principles and encompassing three closely related dimensions: operations, or the fit between the Bank's lending program and its development objectives; concepts, its vision of development and anti-poverty strategy; and power, which includes the Bank's relationships with member countries and the wider public, as well as structures of internal governance and accountability.
Download or read book Fair Progress written by Ambar Narayan and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2018-05-31 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fair Progress? Economic Mobility across Generations around the World focuses on an issue that has gotten much attention in the developed world, but will present new data and analysis covering most of the world including developing economies. The analysis considers whether those born in poverty or in prosperity are destined to remain in the same economic circumstances into which they were born, and looks back over a half a century at whether children's lives are better or worse than their parents' in different parts of the world. It suggests local, national, and global actions and policies that can help break the cycle of poverty, paving the way for the next generation to realize their potential and improve their lives.
Download or read book Unbreakable written by Stephane Hallegatte and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2016-11-24 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Economic losses from natural disasters totaled $92 billion in 2015.' Such statements, all too commonplace, assess the severity of disasters by no other measure than the damage inflicted on buildings, infrastructure, and agricultural production. But $1 in losses does not mean the same thing to a rich person that it does to a poor person; the gravity of a $92 billion loss depends on who experiences it. By focusing on aggregate losses—the traditional approach to disaster risk—we restrict our consideration to how disasters affect those wealthy enough to have assets to lose in the first place, and largely ignore the plight of poor people. This report moves beyond asset and production losses and shifts its attention to how natural disasters affect people’s well-being. Disasters are far greater threats to well-being than traditional estimates suggest. This approach provides a more nuanced view of natural disasters than usual reporting, and a perspective that takes fuller account of poor people’s vulnerabilities. Poor people suffer only a fraction of economic losses caused by disasters, but they bear the brunt of their consequences. Understanding the disproportionate vulnerability of poor people also makes the case for setting new intervention priorities to lessen the impact of natural disasters on the world’s poor, such as expanding financial inclusion, disaster risk and health insurance, social protection and adaptive safety nets, contingent finance and reserve funds, and universal access to early warning systems. Efforts to reduce disaster risk and poverty go hand in hand. Because disasters impoverish so many, disaster risk management is inseparable from poverty reduction policy, and vice versa. As climate change magnifies natural hazards, and because protection infrastructure alone cannot eliminate risk, a more resilient population has never been more critical to breaking the cycle of disaster-induced poverty.
