World Development Report Background Papers

381 items available

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Here you will find World Development Report background papers going back to 2005. They were commissioned by the authors of the World Development Report and contain much of the critical research upon which each report was based.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 381
  • Publication
    Mapping Data Governance Legal Frameworks Around the World: Findings from the Global Data Regulation Diagnostic
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04) Chen, Rong
    A robust data governance regulatory environment, encompassing both safeguards that protect the rights of market players and enablers that facilitate use/reuse of data, provide an important foundation for trust in the data economy. This paper presents the methodology and findings from a Global Data Regulation Diagnostic. The Global Data Regulation diagnostic is a detailed assessment of laws and regulations on data governance, covering both safeguards and enablers for data governance across 80 countries ranging from low to high income groups. Diagnostic results show that countries have put in greater effort in adopting enabling regulations than regulatory safeguards. However, the development of both enablers and safeguards remains at an intermediate stage: only 41 percent of good practices for safeguards and 47 percent for enablers have been adopted across countries. The diagnostic identifies gaps in the regulatory framework across several important dimensions including safeguards for personal and nonpersonal data, cross-border data flows and cybersecurity, as well as enablers for public and private intent data, as well as e-commerce. While higher income countries are typically more advanced than their lower income counterparts, significant gaps nonetheless remain in the regulatory framework for data across all income groups.
  • Publication
    A Demand-Side View of Mobile Internet Adoption in the Global South
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-03) Chen, Rong
    Mobile technologies show great potential to accelerate internet access and usage, especially in developing countries. A better understanding of key drivers and main constraints for mobile internet access is the first prerequisite for governments to design targeted policy solutions. This study exploits a household survey that collects information on information and communications technology access and usage at the household and individual levels in 22 countries in the Global South. The study finds that in addition to infrastructure investment, which has been the main focus of many developing countries, other demand-side factors are of critical importance. Across the developing world, females, the elderly, those who live in rural areas, and those who have a relatively low level of income or education are less likely to adopt mobile internet. Social network effects are found to have a significant positive impact on the usage of mobile internet. Those who have more close friends using an online social network are more likely to adopt mobile internet. Individuals whose five closest friends are using an online social network (such as Facebook or Twitter) are 63.1 percent more likely to adopt it than those without any close friends using such online social network sites/apps. Across regions, although the factors affecting the adoption of mobile internet remain largely the same, the magnitudes of their impacts vary. In Asia, gender differences are negatively associated with mobile internet. In Africa, the impact of education level is more salient than in the other two regions, implying an urgent need to improve digital literacy.
  • Publication
    Statistical Performance Indicators and Index: A New Tool to Measure Country Statistical Capacity
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-03) Pullinger, John; Dang, Hai-Anh H.; Serajuddin, Umar; Stacy, Brian
    The World Bank’s Statistical Capacity Index has been widely employed to measure country statistical capacity since its inception two decades ago. This paper builds on the existing advantages of the Statistical Capacity Index, conceptually and empirically, to offer new statistical performance indicators and the Statistical Performance Index, which can better measure a country’s statistical performance. The new index has clearer conceptual motivations, employs a stronger mathematical foundation, and significantly expands the number of indicators and countries covered. The paper further provides empirical evidence that illustrates the strong correlation of the new index with other commonly used development indicators of human capital, governance, poverty, and inequality. The framework can accommodate future directions to improve the index as the global data landscape evolves
  • Publication
    Achieving Privacy: Costs of Compliance and Enforcement of Data Protection Regulation
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-03) Chander, Anupam; Abraham, Meaza; Chandy, Sandeep; Fang, Yuan; Park, Dayoung; Yu, Isabel
    Is privacy a luxury for the rich world? Remarkably, there is a dearth of literature evaluating whether data privacy is too costly for companies to implement, or too expensive for governments to enforce. This paper is the first to offer a review of surveys of costs of compliance, and to summarize national budgets for enforcement. The study shows that while privacy may indeed prove costly for companies to implement, it is not too costly for governments to enforce. This study will help inform governments as they fashion and implement privacy laws to address the “privacy enforcement gap”—the disparity between the privacy on the books, and the privacy on the ground.
  • Publication
    Regulating Personal Data: Data Models and Digital Services Trade
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-03) Ferracane, Martina Francesca; van der Marel, Erik
    While regulations on personal data diverge widely between countries, it is nonetheless possible to identify three main models based on their distinctive features: one model based on open transfers and processing of data, a second model based on conditional transfers and processing, and third a model based on limited transfers and processing. These three data models have become a reference for many other countries when defining their rules on the cross-border transfer and domestic processing of personal data. The study reviews their main characteristics and systematically identifies for 116 countries worldwide to which model they adhere for the two components of data regulation (i.e. cross-border transfers and domestic processing of data). In a second step, using gravity analysis, the study estimates whether countries sharing the same data model exhibit higher or lower digital services trade compared to countries with different regulatory data models. The results show that sharing the open data model for cross-border data transfers is positively associated with trade in digital services, while sharing the conditional model for domestic data processing is also positively correlated with trade in digital services. Country-pairs sharing the limited model, instead, exhibit a double whammy: they show negative trade correlations throughout the two components of data regulation. Robustness checks control for restrictions in digital services, the quality of digital infrastructure, as well as for the use of alternative data sources.
  • Publication
    Small Area Estimation of Non-Monetary Poverty with Geospatial Data
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-09) Masaki, Takaaki; Newhouse, David; Silwal, Ani Rudra; Bedada, Adane; Engstrom, Ryan
    This paper uses data from Sri Lanka and Tanzania to evaluate the benefits of combining household surveys with geographically comprehensive geospatial indicators to generate small area estimates of non-monetary poverty. The preferred estimates are generated by utilizing subarea-level geospatial indicators in a household-level empirical best predictor mixed model with a normalized welfare measure. Mean squared errors are estimated using a parametric bootstrap procedure. The resulting estimates are highly correlated with non-monetary poverty calculated from the full census in both countries, and the gain in precision is comparable to increasing the size of the sample by a factor of three in Sri Lanka and five in Tanzania. The empirical best predictor model moderately underestimates uncertainty, but coverage rates are similar to standard survey-based estimates that assume independent outcomes across clusters. A variety of checks, including adding noise to the welfare measure and model-based and design-based simulations, confirm that the main results are robust. The results demonstrate that combining household survey data with subarea-level geospatial indicators can greatly increase the precision of survey estimates of non-monetary poverty at comparatively low cost.
  • Publication
    icio: Economic Analysis with Inter-Country Input-Output Tables in Stata
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-02) Belotti, Federico; Borin, Alessandro; Mancini, Michele
    Several new statistical tools and analytical frameworks have been developed recently to measure countries' and sectors' involvement in global value chains. Such wealth of methodologies reflects that different empirical questions call for distinct accounting methods, along with different levels of aggregation of trade flows. This paper is a companion to the conceptual framework presented in Borin and Mancini (2019). The paper describes a new Stata module, icio, that allows the user to construct the most appropriate measure for given empirical questions on trade in value-added and participation in global value chains of countries and sectors. By exploiting inter-country input-output tables, icio provides decompositions of aggregate, bilateral, and sectoral exports and imports according to the source and destination of their value-added content. As different measures are suited to address distinct economic questions, icio is designed to be flexible also in this respect.
  • Publication
    Conceptual Aspects of Global Value Chains
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-01) Antras, Pol
    The paper offers an overview of some key conceptual aspects associated with the rise of global value chains (GVCs). It outlines a series of alternative interpretations and definitions of what the rise of GVCs entails, and it traces the implications of these alternative conceptualizations for the measurement of the phenomenon, as well as for elucidating the key determinants and implications of GVC participation, both at the country level and at the firm level. In the process, the paper offers some speculative thoughts about the future of GVCs in light of the advent of an array of new technologies.
  • Publication
    An Empirical Investigation of Trade Diversion and Global Value Chains
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-12) de Soyres, Francois; Maire, Julien; Sublet, Guillaume
    This paper uses data on directional trade flows and Regional Trade Agreements (RTA) to i) estimate the effects of RTA on trade flows and ii) assess the importance of Global Value Chains for these effects. Based on a Difference-in- Difference identification strategy, we find that RTAs are associated with: (1) an increase in trade within the region, (2) a decrease in inflows to the region, and (3) an increase in outflows from the region. The first two findings can be understood as trade creation and trade diversion due to a shift in demand associated with the lower trade barriers within the region and Rules of Origin as an implicit trade barrier for imports from the rest of the world. Global Value Chains are most relevant to understand the third finding on the increase in outflows from the region. The key determinant of the increase in outflows is the importance of the Regional Value Chains for imports of intermediates by members of the region.
  • Publication
    Inflation Dynamics and Global Value Chains
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-12) de Soyres, Francois; Franco, Sebastian
    The global economy has witnessed a decline in inflation and an increase in inflation synchronization since the early 1980s. This paper investigates the relationship between inflation synchronization and trade integration, and documents the strong link between inflation co-movement and Global Value Chain (GVC) participation. Using 35 years and both gross and value-added trade flows, evidence shows that an increase in production linkages, as proxied by trade in intermediate inputs, is strongly associated with higher inflation correlation. Moreover, backward GVC participation is associated with an increase in bilateral inflation co-movement while forward participation is linked with a higher correlation between domestic and worldwide inflation. The paper also finds evidence of the effect of trade integration in decreasing inflation levels.