Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes

668 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 78
  • Publication
    Protecting Workers, Firms, and Worker-Firm Attachment During COVID-19: Economic Considerations for the Assessment of Policy Measures
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-26) Carranza, Eliana; Veuger, Stan; Weber, Michael
    Governments around the world provided various types of support to businesses and their employees affected by the by the COVID-19 pandemic, to preserve employer-employee links, organizational knowledge, and firm-specific human capital, and to facilitate the economic recovery. This note complements efforts dedicated to document jobs-related policy responses by providing an overview of some of the basic economic considerations for the design and assessment of these policy measures, with special attention to emerging economies. The authors outline a simple framework for policy assessment that accounts for the mechanisms that transmit COVID-19 shocks through the economy and the implications of the larger informal sector and fiscal constraints shared by many emerging economies. The authors then apply this framework to analyze an array of policies that have been deployed to prevent and address business failures and job losses in sectors directly or indirectly affected by the pandemic.
  • Publication
    Firms’ Recovery from COVID-19 in Malaysia: Results from the 5th Round of COVID-19 Business Pulse Survey
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-08) Kuriakose, Smita; Ting, Kok Onn; Hebous, Sarah; Tiew, Haris
    The survey implemented in August 2022 shows that economic recovery is taking root in Malaysia as evidenced by the trends in operating hours, sales, and employment. The outlook of firms is positive and with more than 38 percent of firms relative to 34 percent of firms in R4 business pulse survey (BPS) expecting higher sales for Q4 2022. With international borders being opened, firms’ recovery has accelerated across regions and firm sizes. However, this brings about new challenges for firms such as shortages of labor, rising input costs, and increasing market competition.
  • Publication
    COVID-19 in Papua New Guinea: Economic and Social Impacts - Insights from the Fifth Round of High Frequency Phone Surveys
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-05-31) World Bank
    The fifth round of the high frequency phone survey (HFPS) interviewed 2,630 households in June 2022 on the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19, including employment and income, community trust and security and COVID-19 vaccination. It follows four rounds of surveys conducted from June 2020 to December 2021. The previous round of the HFPS (round 4), found that recovery was weak in 2021, with household incomes falling, and highlighted persistently low COVID-19 vaccination rates. While the third wave of COVID-19 was over by June 2022, PNG remains the least vaccinated country in the EAP region and could be vulnerable to future outbreaks of COVID-19. The World Bank estimates that the PNG economy contracted by 3.5 percent in 2020 before returning to positive economic growth of 1 percent in 2021. Stronger economic growth is projected for 2022, of 4 percent. In particular, strong growth is projected for the extractive sector (6.8 percent). However, the trajectory of economic recovery remains highly uncertain.
  • Publication
    Firms’ Recovery from COVID-19 in Malaysia: Results from the 4th Round of COVID-19 Business Pulse Survey
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-02-28) Kuriakose, Smita; Tran, Trang Thu; Ting, Kok Onn; Hebous, Sarah Waltraut
    The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) business pulse survey (BPS) is a rapid survey designed to measure the various channels of impact of COVID-19 on firms, firm adjustment strategies, and public policy responses. The World Bank, in collaboration with a private survey company, conducted the 4th round of the Malaysia BPS in February to March 2022, following the 1st round in October 2020, 2nd round in Mid-January to February 2021, and 3rd round in July 2021. Firms were sampled randomly from an online business panel database, which consists of 100,000+ companies in all sectors and sizes, across Peninsular and East Malaysia. A minimum sample size was obtained for sectors that are important to Malaysia’s economy and are sensitive to the COVID-19 crisis (export-oriented activities: electronics, automotive, tourism related activities) while preserving the sectoral shares in the sampling frame. The survey was conducted online and yielded 1,500 responses from respondents in senior management positions at their company (i.e. owners, C-suite or Director level).
  • Publication
    Somalia: COVID-19 High Phone Survey Wave 2 Brief
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-11) Kotikula, Andy; Pournik, Milad; Yoshimura, Kazusa
    In January 2021, the second wave of the Somalia high frequency phone survey has been administered, calling 2,811 households to see the impact of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on people’s behavior and livelihood. The first wave has been conducted in June 2020, and compared to that, the adoption of preventive measures such as washing hands and wearing mask was less widespread in the second wave, while over 90 percent of people expressed interest in getting tested and vaccinated. The overall employment rate seems to have improved from the first wave, but still the majority of households (79 percent) reported the further income reduction. Food insecurity has clearly worsened compared to the first wave while government and non-government assistance appears to have reduced greatly since 2020, which strongly suggests the need of further support to the Somalis, especially the most vulnerable groups including internally displaced populations (IDPs) and nomadic households.
  • Publication
    Nepal - Assistance and Coping Strategies in 2020 During COVID-19: Policy Brief
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-11-01) World Bank
    The data used in this brief come from the first round of the World Bank’s South Asia COVID-19 Phone Monitoring Survey, which surveyed individuals in the eight South Asia Region (SAR) countries. The survey assessed the short-run impacts of COVID-19 on the labor market, the impacts of income shocks on the ability to meet basic needs, and the coping strategies available to households. This brief summarizes the findings from the safety net and coping mechanisms module. A complementary brief details the labor market impacts of the COVID-19 crisis in Nepal.
  • Publication
    COVID-10 Impact Monitoring: Malawi, Round 12
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-09) World Bank
    In May 2020, the National Statistical Office (NSO), with support from the World Bank, launched the High-Frequency Phone Survey on COVID-19 (coronavirus), which tracks the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic on a monthly basis for a period of 12 months. The survey aimed to recontact the entire sample of households that had been interviewed during the Integrated Household Panel Survey (IHPS) 2019 round and that had a phone number for at least one household member or a reference individual. This report presents the findings from the twelfth round of the survey that was conducted during the period of June 14 - June 30, 2021.
  • Publication
    How Did the COVID-19 Crisis Affect Different Types of Workers in the Developing World?
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-08) Kugler, Maurice; Viollaz, Mariana; Duque, Daniel; Gaddis, Isis; Newhouse, David; Palacios-Lopez, Amparo; Weber, Michael
    The COVID-19 pandemic is the worst global macroeconomic shock since the Great Depression. This brief reports which groups of workers have been hit hardest by the economic fallout of COVID-19 in developing countries. Larger shares of female, young, less educated, and urban workers stopped working, with gender differences being particularly pronounced. Gender gaps in work stoppage stemmed mainly from differences within sectors rather than differential employment patterns across sectors. Among those that remained employed, changes in sector of employment and employment type were similar for all groups except for age, where young workers saw a slightly larger decline in industrial employment. Employment increased between April and October, with larger gains for the groups with larger initial job losses, but for most groups these gains fell far short of pre pandemic employment levels. Finally, evidence from five countries suggests that phone surveys give a generally accurate picture of group disparities in employment rates following the onset of the crisis and are proving to be a valuable tool for monitoring differential impacts of the crisis on workers
  • Publication
    Female-Owned Firms during the COVID-19 Crisis
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-07-29) Hyland, Marie; Muzi, Silvia; Viganola, Domenico
    This brief use firm-level data collected between May 2020 and May 2021 in 41 countries, to provide descriptive evidence on the differential effect of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis on female- and male-owned firms. Data suggest that while female-owned and male-owned businesses closed permanently at the same rates, female-owned firms were more likely to have temporarily closed during the crisis and to have closed for a longer duration. When able to stay in business, female-owned firms were more likely to experience a decrease in demand for their products or services and supply of intermediate inputs than male-owned firms. They also reduced the size of their workforce more than their male counterparts and were more likely to reduce hours worked. Finally, female-owned firms suffered deeper financial distress than male-owned firms. Nevertheless, female and male-owned firms show similar optimism of returning to normal levels of sales or workforce in the near future.
  • Publication
    The Evolving Labor Market Impacts of COVID-19 in Developing Countries
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-07-22) Khamis, Melanie; Prinz, Daniel; Newhouse, David; Palacios-Lopez, Amparo; Pape, Utz; Weber, Michael
    The early labor market impacts of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic resulted in widespread disruption to livelihoods. Previous analysis showed that between April and July 2020, across a sample of 39 countries, an average of 34 percent of workers stopped work, 20 percent of employees experienced partial or no payments for work performed, and 9 percent changed jobs during the early part of the pandemic. This brief discusses how labor markets have evolved since the initial phase of the crisis in the spring and early summer of 2020. It uses harmonized data from high-frequency phone surveys (HFPS) conducted in 33 developing countries and provides information on the changing labor market impacts of the crisis in these countries from the initial phase of the pandemic in April 2020 through December 2020.