World Development Report
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The World Bank’s World Development Report, published annually since 1978, is an invaluable guide to the economic, social, and environmental state of the world today. Each report provides in-depth analysis and policy recommendations on a specific and important aspect of development—from agriculture, the role of the state, transition economies, and labor to infrastructure, health, the environment, and poverty. Through the quality and timeliness of the information it provides, the report has become a highly influential publication that is used by many multilateral and bilateral international organizations, national governments, scholars, civil society networks and groups, and other global thought leaders to support their decision-making processes. This corporate flagship undergoes extensive internal and external review and is one of the key outputs of the World Bank's Development Economics unit.
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Publication
World Development Report 2022: Finance for an Equitable Recovery
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-02-15)World Development Report 2022: Finance for an Equitable Recovery examines the central role of finance in the economic recovery from COVID-19. Based on an in-depth look at the consequences of the crisis most likely to affect low- and middle-income economies, it advocates a set of policies and measures to mitigate the interconnected economic risks stemming from the pandemic—risks that may become more acute as stimulus measures are withdrawn at both the domestic and global levels. Those policies include the efficient and transparent management of nonperforming loans to mitigate threats to financial stability, insolvency reforms to allow for the orderly reduction of unsustainable debts, innovations in risk management and lending models to ensure continued access to credit for households and businesses, and improvements in sovereign debt management to preserve the ability of governments to support an equitable recovery. -
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World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography
(World Bank, 2009)Places do well when they promote transformations along the dimensions of economic geography: higher densities as cities grow; shorter distances as workers and businesses migrate closer to density; and fewer divisions as nations lower their economic borders and enter world markets to take advantage of scale and trade in specialized products. World Development Report 2009 concludes that the transformations along these three dimensions density, distance, and division are essential for development and should be encouraged. The conclusion is controversial. Slum-dwellers now number a billion, but the rush to cities continues. A billion people live in lagging areas of developing nations, remote from globalizations many benefits. And poverty and high mortality persist among the world’s bottom billion, trapped without access to global markets, even as others grow more prosperous and live ever longer lives. Concern for these three intersecting billions often comes with the prescription that growth must be spatially balanced. This report has a different message: economic growth will be unbalanced. To try to spread it out is to discourage it to fight prosperity, not poverty. But development can still be inclusive, even for people who start their lives distant from dense economic activity. For growth to be rapid and shared, governments must promote economic integration, the pivotal concept, as this report argues, in the policy debates on urbanization, territorial development, and regional integration. Instead, all three debates overemphasize place-based interventions. Reshaping Economic Geography reframes these debates to include all the instruments of integration spatially blind institutions, spatially connective infrastructure, and spatially targeted interventions. By calibrating the blend of these instruments, today’s developers can reshape their economic geography. If they do this well, their growth will still be unbalanced, but their development will be inclusive. -
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Development Economics through the Decades: A Critical Look at 30 Years of the World Development Report
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009)The World Development Report (WDR) has become such a fixture that it is easy to forget the circumstances under which it was born and the Bank's motivation for producing such a report at that time. In the first chapter of this essay, the authors provide a brief background on the circumstances of newly independent developing countries and summarize some of the main strands of the emerging field of development economics. This backdrop to the genesis of the WDR accounts for the orientation of the earlier reports. The thinking on development in the 1960s and 1970s also provides a baseline from which to view the evolution that has occurred since. From the coverage in the second chapter, the authors isolate a number of key issues common to several or all of the WDRs, and the author examine these issues individually at greater length in third chapter. The discussion in third chapter, which builds on the material in the WDRs, presents some views about how far development thinking and, relatedly, policy making have advanced relative to 30 years ago. It asks whether promoting growth, building institutions, tackling inequality and poverty, making aid effective, and defining the role of the state have been rendered more tractable policy wise by the knowledge encapsulated in the WDRs. Chapter four looks ahead and points to some of the big challenges that the Bank might explore through future WDRs and the value it can add through the knowledge acquired from its cross-country operations and research. -
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World Development Report 2006: Equity and Development
(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development. -
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World Development Report 2005: A Better Investment Climate for Everyone
(World Bank, 2004)Firms and entrepreneurs of all types from microenterprises to multinationals play a central role in growth and poverty reduction. Their investment decisions drive job creation, the availability and affordability of goods and services for consumers, and the tax revenues governments can draw on to fund health, education, and other services. Their contribution depends largely on the way governments shape the investment climate in each location through the protection of property rights, regulation and taxation, strategies for providing infrastructure, interventions in finance and labor markets, and broader governance features such as corruption. The World Development Report 2005 argues that improving the investment climates of their societies should be a top priority for governments. Drawing on surveys of nearly 30,000 firms in 53 developing countries, country case studies, and other new research, the Report explores questions such as: What are the key features of a good investment climate, and how do they influence growth and poverty? What can governments do to improve their investment climates, and how can they go about tackling such a broad agenda? What has been learned about good practice in each of the main areas of the investment climate? What role might selective interventions and international arrangements play in improving the investment climate? What can the international community do to help developing countries improve the investment climates of their societies? In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Bank's new program of Investment Climate Surveys, the Bank's Doing Business Project, and World Development Indicators 2004‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development. -
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World Development Report 2002: Building Institutions for Markets
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2002)Markets should give incentives to engage in wider trade, forge the ability to use resources, and skills fully, and provide the opportunity to increase incomes, and accumulate assets. Despite underlying problems, many people in both developed, and developing countries do engage in productive, and rewarding market activity, for income from market participation is the key to economic growth for nations, and to reducing poverty for individuals. This report is about enhancing opportunities for poor people in markets, and empower them, provided regulatory frameworks, law enforcement, and organizational promotion accompany market transactions. Hence, building institutions that support the development of markets is the primary focus of this report, analyzing what institutions do to promote growth, and facilitate access, and suggesting how to build effective institutions. In understanding what drives institutional change, the report emphasizes the importance of history, highlighting the need to ensure effective institutions through: a design that complements existing institutions, human capabilities, and available technologies; innovations to identify both institutions that work, and those that do not; communities of market players connected through open information, and trade; and, the promotion of competition among jurisdictions, firms, and individuals. This overview is a presage to the World Development Report 2002, which shows that institutional strength ensures stable, and inclusive growth. -
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World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1997)This is the twentieth in the annual series assessing major development issues. The report is devoted to the role and effectiveness of the state: what it should do, how it should do it, and how it can improve in a rapidly changing world. Governments with both centrally-planned and mixed economies are shrinking their market role because of failed state interventions. This report takes an opposite stance: that state's role in the institutional environment underlying the economy, that is, its ability to enforce a rule of law to underpin transactions, is vital to making government contribute more effectively to development. It argues against reducing government to a minimalist state, explaining that development requires an effective state that plays a facilitator role in encouraging and complementing the activities of private businesses and individuals. The report presents a state reform framework strategy: First, focus the state's activities to match its capabilities; and second, look for ways to improve the state's capability by re-invigorating public institutions. Successful and unsuccessful examples of states and state reform provide illustrations. -
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World Development Report 1996: From Plan to Market
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1996)This World Development Report examines the transition of countries with alternative systems of centrally planned economies back to a market orientation. These countries seceded from the world market economy between 1917 and 1950 and now face a massive restructuring task. This transition goes beyond typical reforms because the change is deep and systemic, requiring the establishment of key market institutions. This report analyzes two sets of overarching questions. The first series focuses on the initial challenges of transition and how different countries have responded. It examines: (i) whether differences in transition policies and outcomes reflect different reform strategies, or whether they reflect primarily country-specific factors such as economic structure, the level of development, or the impact of simultaneous political changes; (ii) whether strong liberalization and stabilization policies are needed up front, or if other reforms can progress equally well without them; (iii) whether privatization is necessary early in the reform process or at all; and (iv) whether there has to be a gulf between winners and losers from transition. The second set of questions looks beyond these challenges to the longer-term agenda of consolidating the reforms by developing the institutions and policies that will help the new market system to flourish. It focuses on: (i) how countries in transition should develop and strengthen the rule of law and control corruption and organized crime; (ii) how they can build effective financial systems; (iii) how governments should restructure themselves to meet the needs of a market system; (iv) how countries can preserve and adapt their human skills base; (v) why international integration is so vital for transition, and what the implications are for trading partners and capital flows; and (vi) how external assistance can best support countries in transition. -
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World Development Report 1991: The Challenge of Development
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1991)This report is the fourteenth in an annual series assessing major development issues. This report synthesizes and interprets the lessons of more than forty years of development experience. Together with last year's report on poverty and next year's on the environment, it seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of the development agenda. The 1990s began with dramatic changes, as many countries in Eastern Europe and elsewhere initiated ambitious reforms of their economic and political systems. Against the backdrop of these transitions, this report links the historical debates that counseled policymakers in their past decisions, the lessons of experience, and the evolving thought on how best to proceed. One of the most valuable lessons relates to the interaction between the state and the market in fostering development. It describes a market-friendly approach in which governments allow markets to function well, and in which governments concentrate their interventions on areas in which markets prove inadequate. The report looks at four main aspects of the relationship between governments and markets: (a) investing in people; (b) the climate for enterprises to flourish; (c) the integration of countries with the global economy; and (d) a stable macroeconomic foundation for sustained progress. The report stresses that, above all, the future of developing countries is in their own hands. Domestic policies and institutions hold the key to successful development. -
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World Development Report 1990: Poverty
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990)This report is the thirteenth in the annual series addressing major development issues. This report is about the poor. It is thus about the fundamental issue in economic development : the eradication of poverty from the world. The report defines poverty in broad terms, to include literacy, nutrition, and health, as well as income. The evidence suggests that rapid and politically sustainable progress on poverty has been achieved by pursuing a strategy with two equally important elements. The first is to promote the efficient use of the poor's most abundant asset : labor. It calls for policies that harness market incentives, social and political institutions, infrastructure and technology. The second element is the provision of basic social services to the poor (e.g. primary health care, family planning, nutrition, and primary education). The report concludes that eliminating poverty altogether is not a realistic goal for the 1990s, but that reducing it greatly is entirely possible. Using plausible assumptions about the global economic environment, and with some policy improvements, the report projects a fall of one third in the number of people in poverty by the year 2000.