03. Journals

2,963 items available

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http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2210

These are journal articles published in World Bank journals as well as externally by World Bank authors.

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Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

South Meets South : Enriching the Development Menu

( 2010-10) Maruri, Enrique ; Fraeters, Han

African countries, like Nigeria, with an emerging information technology (IT) industry, are examples of how globalization has opened up vast new opportunities. Information technology and business process outsourcing is a multibillion dollar talent-driven industry with a market that is still untapped. Africa is keen on exploring this new frontier which has the potential to create thousands of quality jobs for its young people. But to do so, it must nurture the right skills. Where can these be found?
The Bogotá Spirit : South-South Peers and Partners at the Practice-Policy Nexus

( 2010-10) Schulz, Nils-Sjard

On a warm evening in late March of this year, more than 500 enthusiastic delegates from around the world poured out of the Chamber of Commerce building in Bogot�, with a shared vision that South-South cooperation would reshape today�s development cooperation landscape. Despite the Colombian capital�s dizzying altitude of 2,800 meters, their zeal for effective South-South knowledge exchange and mutual learning left the participants of the Bogot� High Level Event on South-South cooperation and Capacity Development clear headed and with a long list of ideas, projects and plans, for their countries and regions, and for their multilateral, parliamentary, civil society, and research organizations.
Managing Knowledge in Organizations : Summary of an Interview with Marshall Van Alstyne and Hind Benbya

( 2010-10) Leonard, Aaron

Knowledge exchange among practitioners in low- and middle-income countries is now at the forefront of global development policy formulation. But the question of how to connect the right people with the right knowledge at the right time isn�t new. Knowledge Management (KM) has been an established discipline since the 1990s. We talked with MIT�s Marshall Van Alstyne and Montpellier�s Hind Benbya about the state of knowledge management and information exchange in organizations today, and how new practices like knowledge markets can help us find better solutions to some of today�s trickiest development challenges.
Financial Institutions and Markets across Countries and over Time

(World Bank, 2010-02-15) Beck, Thorsten ; Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli ; Levine, Ross

This article introduces the updated and expanded version of the Financial Development and Structure Database. The database includes indicators on the size, efficiency, and stability of banks, nonbank financial institutions, and equity and bond markets over 1960–2007. It also contains indicators of financial globalization.
Policy Reforms Affecting Agricultural Incentives

(World Bank, 2010-02-01) Anderson, Kym

For decades, earnings from farming in many developing countries have been depressed by a pro-urban bias in own-country policies, as well as by governments of richer countries favoring their farmers with import barriers and subsidies. Both sets of policies reduce national and global economic welfare and inhibit agricultural trade and economic growth. They almost certainly add to inequality and poverty in developing countries, since three-quarters of the world's billion poorest people depend on farming for their livelihood. During the past two decades, however, numerous developing country governments have reduced their sectoral and trade policy distortions, while some high-income countries also have begun reducing market-distorting aspects of their farm policies. The author surveys the changing extent of policy distortions to prices faced by developing-country farmers over the past half century, and provides a summary of new empirical estimates from a global economy-wide model that yield estimates of how much could be gained by removing the interventions remaining as of 2004. The author concludes by pointing to the scope and prospects for further pro-poor policy reform in both developing and high-income countries.
Evaluating Recipes for Development Success

(World Bank, 2007-09-30) Dixit, Avinash

Evaluating Recipes for Development Success Avinash Dixit This article offers a provocative critique of the ability of research on the impact of institutions on growth to offer immediate and practical recommendations for reforming and redesigning institutions in developing countries and transition economies. The article suggests a Bayesian diagnostic procedure to identify the causes of economic failure in an individual country as a first step toward remedying the failure. The main purpose of the most scholarly research, both theoretical and empirical, is to improve our understanding of the phenomena and processes being studied. In the concluding section, I suggest a framework or methodology of research that combines general conceptual and empirical findings from academic research and the experience of practitioners to help narrow or identify the causes of failures in individual countries. Besley and Burgess (2002), using panel data from India, find that an informed and active electorate leads to effective incentives for governments to respond to economic problems and that mass media play an important part. Acemoglu (2003) argues that the lack of third-party enforcement in political contracts makes it harder to make credible commitments, and that this explains the absence of a Coase theorem ensuring efficient outcomes in political bargaining. Finally, the theoretical literature, using a repeated-game framework, shows how a partial improvement of an imperfect formal system, by providing a better outside alternative and thereby lessening the harmful consequences of breaking a relational contract, can worsen the outcomes of the informal system (Baker, Gibbons, and Murphy 1994; Dixit 2004). They find that a country's initial conditions are more important than policy changes in determining its economic performance during the first few years of transition; that is, whether the reforms are rapid or gradual is less important. Pmn Avinash Dixit 151 If we observe a particular effect, say E7, then the Bayesian posterior probability that a particular cause, say C5, is present becomes p P Pm 5 5;7 : i 1 pi Pi;7 If we want to be nearly certain whether a cause, say C5, is present, we need to find an outcome, say E7, which will more typically be a cluster of outcomes or symptoms and might be called a "syndrome," such that It is very unlikely to occur when the underlying cause is any other cause, that is, Pi7 is close to It is very likely to occur when C5 is present, that is, P5,7 is close to one, so the rest of the P5,j's are close to zero, and if some other effect is observed, the posterior probability of C5 becomes close to zero.
The Growing Relationship Between China and Sub-Saharan Africa

(World Bank, 2007-03-01) Zafar, Ali

China’s economic ascendance over the past two decades has generated ripple effects in the world economy. Its search for natural resources to satisfy the demands of industrialization has led it to Sub-Saharan Africa. Trade between China and Africa in 2006 totaled more than $50 billion, with Chinese companies importing oil from Angola and Sudan, timber from Central Africa, and copper from Zambia. Demand from China has contributed to an upward swing in prices, particularly for oil and metals from Africa, and has given a boost to real GDP in Sub-Saharan Africa. Chinese aid and investment in infrastructure are bringing desperately needed capital to the continent. At the same time, however, strong Chinese demand for oil is contributing to an increase in the import bill for many oil-importing Sub- Saharan African countries, and its exports of low-cost textiles, while benefiting African consumers, is threatening to displace local production. China poses a challenge to good governance and macroeconomic management in Africa because of the potential Dutch disease implications of commodity booms. China presents both an opportunity for Africa to reduce its marginalization from the global economy and a challenge for it to effectively harness the influx of resources to promote poverty-reducing economic development at home.