Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes

683 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10986/9388

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 28

Mapping Impact in Burkina Faso: Country-Level Impact of Adaptive Social Protection Programs in the Sahel
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-05) World Bank
In the Sahel, Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) is a set of social protection policies, systems, and programs that promote human capital, productivity, and resilience of the poorest and strengthen their capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to shocks. Through the delivery of regular social safety nets, productive inclusion interventions, and shock-responsive programs, ASP has demonstrated strong positive impacts on various dimensions in the Sahel. For the poorest and most vulnerable, it has resulted in improvements in household welfare and food security, productivity, and resilience. More broadly, it has shown significant positive impacts on the economy, society, and future generations.
Educated Workers and Managers in the EU-27
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-03) Amin, Mohammad
This Brief highlights issues related to the education and skill level of workers and top managers in firms in 27 European Union countries (the EU-27), using the World Bank Enterprise Surveys (WBES). The exercise is an important step toward understanding the use of skilled and adequately educated workers and top managers by a firm and its likely effects. The Brief identifies several factors at the NUTS2 region level and firm level that are correlated with the difficulty firms face in obtaining adequately educated workers as well as the skill level and education level of the workers and top managers. Somewhat surprisingly, income per inhabitant in the NUTS2 regions is not a strong predictor of the use of skilled and educated workers and top managers or firms’ reported difficulty in finding adequately educated workers. Several firm performance measures, such as labor productivity, employment growth, exporting, research and development (R&D), and management quality, are found to be correlated with the use of skilled and educated workers and top managers. Some of these correlations differ sharply between low and high levels of the outcome variables. There is evidence that training provided to workers by the firms is associated with less dispersion of labor productivity between firms, and greater use of skilled workers is associated with less dispersion of wage rates across firms. Overall, the Brief finds that starting at low-income levels in EU regions, policy focus needs to shift more toward ensuring the availability of adequately educated workers than on reducing other obstacles as the economy develops. This shifting of policy focus can stabilize after the economy is sufficiently developed.
Understanding Women’s Lower Participation than Men as Workers, Top Managers, and Owners in Private Firms in the EU-27 Countries
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-27) Amin, Mohammad
This Brief examines issues related to women’s participation as workers, top managers, and owners of private firms in 27 European Union countries (EU-27), using the rich database of the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. The analysis focuses on EU regions varying between about 800,000 and 3 million inhabitants (NUTS2-level groupings). Overall, women’s participation as workers, top managers, and firm owners is statistically significantly less than that of men. Surprisingly, richer NUTS2 regions experience a larger gender gap favoring men in employment, top manager positions, and firm ownership. Another worrying feature is that relative to men, women workers tend to be concentrated in firms that are less productive and pay low wages. Thus, closing gender gaps in income requires not just more jobs but also better quality of jobs for women. Having a woman as the top manager of the firm is associated with a higher share of women workers in the firm, but this effect is much stronger when the firm initially has a relatively high share of women workers. A gender gap also exists in labor productivity, which is lower for women-run firms than men-run firms, and for firms with higher women’s ownership. These gaps in labor productivity are much larger at lower quantiles of labor productivity, implying the presence of sticky floors but not necessarily glass ceilings in the EU-27 countries. The Brief identifies some of the factors that are correlated with the average gender labor productivity gap and estimates their contribution to the gap. There is no systematic difference in the level of constraints, including access to finance, faced by men-run versus women-run firms and/or by firms at different levels of women’s ownership.
Establishment Size Distribution in the European Union
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-27) Tamkoç, M. Nazim
This Brief studies the establishment size distribution in the European Union countries. A well-established literature has established that an abundance of small establishments among lower-income countries is evidence of the misallocation of inputs. To investigate this phenomenon, this Brief analyzes both the mean size (in terms of employment) and the employment share of the top 10 percent of establishments within an economy, across European Union countries and regions at the NUTS1 and NUT2 levels. Results show that higher-income countries have larger establishments on average and a higher concentration of employment in the top 10 percent of establishments than lower-income countries. These findings hold when looking at both the NUTS1 and NUTS2 regional levels. Moreover, establishment size increases with the age of the establishment and the level of foreign ownership and exports. Finally, a comparison of overall establishment size distribution reveals that lower-income countries have a higher prevalence of smaller establishments and fewer larger establishments than higher-income countries, which confirms the predictions of the misallocation literature.
Mapping Impact in Niger: Country-Level Impact of Adaptive Safety Nets in the Sahel
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-26) World Bank
In the Sahel, Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) is a set of social protection policies, systems, and programs that promote human capital, productivity, and resilience of the poorest and strengthen their capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to shocks. Through the delivery of regular social safety nets, economic inclusion interventions, and shock-responsive programs, ASP has demonstrated strong positive impacts on various dimensions of welfare in the Sahel. For the poorest and most vulnerable, it has resulted in improvements in household welfare and food security, productivity, and resilience. More broadly, it has shown significant positive impacts on the economy, society, and future generations.
Overcoming Intertwined Challenges to Reach Upper Middle Income Status in Bhutan by 2029
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-26) World Bank
The document collection focuses on the challenges and opportunities facing a nation striving to achieve upper-middle-income status. Despite recent economic growth and poverty reduction, the country faces structural obstacles, including a small domestic market, high trade costs, and limited private sector job opportunities. This has led to a reliance on the public sector and state-owned enterprises, with limited economic diversification and productivity improvements. The document highlights the need for a coalition of stakeholders, including citizens, civil society, the private sector, and development partners, to implement critical reforms and actions. These reforms aim to promote economic progress, invest in people, and contribute to a more livable planet. The document emphasizes the importance of strengthening the private sector, improving infrastructure, investing in education and healthcare, and promoting sustainable development through renewable natural resources.
Mapping Impact in Mali: Country-Level Impact of Adaptive Safety Nets in the Sahel
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-17) World Bank
In the Sahel, adaptive social protection (ASP) is a set of social protection policies, systems, and programs that promote human capital, productivity, and resilience of the poorest and strengthen their capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to shocks. Through the delivery of regular social safety nets, economic inclusion interventions, and shock-responsive programs, ASP has demonstrated strong positive impacts on various dimensions in the Sahel. For the poorest and most vulnerable, it has resulted in improvements in household welfare and food security, productivity, and resilience. More broadly, it has shown significant positive impacts on the economy, society, and future generations.
Regional Poverty and Inequality Update Latin America and the Caribbean: October 2024
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-20) World Bank
This brief summarizes the main trends related to poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) using the latest round of harmonized household surveys from the Socio-Economic Database for Latin America and the Caribbean (SEDLAC) created by the World Bank and the Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Social (CEDLAS). This brief was produced by the Poverty and Equity Global Practice in the Latin America and Caribbean Region of the World Bank.
Sub-national Differences in Human Capital in the CEMAC Region
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-22) World Bank
Countries in the CEMAC region could strengthen their human capital by investing more in education, health and social assistance. A human capital index of between 0.27 and 0.46 suggests that residents of CEMAC countries achieve between a quarter and a half of their potential. In addition, sub-national analysis reveals significant disparities within the countries. Gaps between urban and rural areas, as well as other regional divergences, generate inequalities that can be mitigated by more strategic and efficient spending. This report presents heat maps for different dimensions of human capital available for the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Chad and the Republic of Congo. The analysis could not for Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, in the absence of recent sub-national data.
Regional Poverty and Inequality Update Spring 2024
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-12) World Bank
This is the April 2024 issue of the bi-annual Regional Poverty and Inequality Update for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), which summarizes the main facts related to poverty and inequality in LAC using the new wave of harmonized household surveys from the Socio-Economic Database for Latin America and the Caribbean (SEDLAC). This brief was produced by the Poverty and Equity Global Practice in the Latin America and Caribbean Region of the World Bank.