World Bank Economic Review

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/39236

Journal:
World Bank Economic Review

ISSN

1564-698X

Publisher

Oxford University Press for the World Bank

The World Bank Economic Review publishes and disseminates innovative theoretical and empirical research that identifies, analyzes, measures, and evaluates the macro and micro-economic forces that promote or impede economic development. It aims to provide the knowledge necessary for designing, implementing, and sustaining effective development policies in low and middle income countries.

The World Bank Economic Review is aimed at readers familiar with economic theory and analysis but not necessarily proficient in advanced mathematical or econometric techniques. Material comes from work conducted by World Bank staff and consultants, as well as outside researchers.

Articles are reviewed by three referees, one from the World Bank and two from outside the institution.

Published three times per year 1996 to Present

Editors: Eric Edmonds, Nina Pavcnik

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Search Results

Now showing1 - 10 of 656

Poverty and Prices: Assessing the Impact of the 2017 PPPs on the International Poverty Line and Global Poverty
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2025-08-05) Jolliffe, Dean; Mahler, Daniel Gerszon; Lakner, Christoph; Atamanov, Aziz; Kofi Tetteh-Baah, Samuel
Purchasing power parities (PPPs) are used to estimate the international poverty line (IPL) in a common currency and account for relative price differences across countries when measuring global poverty. This paper assesses the impact of the 2017 PPPs on the nominal value of the IPL and global poverty. Updating the 1.90 dollars IPL in 2011 PPP dollars to 2017 PPP dollars results in an IPL of 2.15 dollars, a finding that is robust to various methods. Based on an updated IPL of 2.15 dollars, the global extreme poverty rate in 2017 falls from the previously estimated 9.3 to 9.1 percent, reducing the count of people who are poor by 15 million. This is a modest change compared with previous updates of PPP data. The paper also assesses the methodological stability between the 2011 and 2017 PPPs, scrutinizes large changes at the country level, and updates alternative, complementary poverty lines with the 2017 PPPs.
Minimum Wage Policy and Poverty in Indonesia
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2025-02-13) Merdikawati, Nurina; Al Izzati, Ridho
This paper investigates whether the minimum wage policy significantly reduced poverty in Java Island, Indonesia, between 2002 and 2014. Its identification strategy exploits variation in minimum wages over time within pairs of geographically proximate districts. The study finds that the minimum wage has a distributional impact on wage workers just below the 20th percentile up to those in the middle of the wage distribution, with no overall loss of employment. However, the minimum wage policy has no distributional impact on per capita household expenditure and a limited effect on changes in poverty status.
The Impact of Weather Shocks on Violent and Property Crimes in Jamaica
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2025-02-11) Wright, Nicholas A.; Stewart, Aubrey M.
Developing countries face the most significant exposure to the adverse effects of climate change. However, as temperature and rainfall patterns change, we do not understand their impact on these countries and the mitigation strategies that may be needed. In this paper, we utilize administrative panel data to examine the effects of weather shocks on violent and property crimes in Jamaica. We find strong evidence that a one standard-deviation increase in the daily temperature (2◦C) increases violent crime by 3.67 percent due to an increase in the number of murders (3.44 percent), shootings (7.53 percent), and cases of aggravated assault (6 percent). However, our results suggest that temperature changes have no statistical impact on property crime. In addition, we find that a one-standard-deviation increase in rainfall (2 mm) reduces crimes such as shootings (1.53 percent), break-ins (2.27 percent), and larcenies (3.85 percent). Still, it has a minimal impact on other categories of crime.
Better Roads, Better Off? Evidence on Upgrading Roads in Tanzania
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2025-02-12) Dumas, Christelle; Játiva, Ximena
Spatial isolation is considered to be one of the main determinants of poverty. Therefore, many transport investments are undertaken with the stated objective of poverty reduction. This paper evaluates the effect of a Tanzanian program that rehabilitated 2,500 km of major roads on rural livelihoods. The analysis uses a large set of variables describing household behavior to provide a complete picture of the adjustments. The identification combines a household fixed effects strategy with propensity score matching. Some damaging effects of the program are found on the rural population in the two years following the intervention: the price of rice decreases; households reallocate labor away from agriculture and provide more wage work, but the increase in wage income does not compensate for the loss in agricultural income. Nor do households seem to be benefiting from the fall in the price of rice at the consumption level. These results are consistent with rural households facing increased competition due to reduced transportation costs.
The Causal Effect of Early Marriage on Women's Bargaining Power: Evidence from Bangladesh
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2024-01-09) Tauseef, Salauddin; Sufian, Farha Deba
Early marriage restrains women’s agency and bargaining strength in post marital households, impairing their ability to make meaningful contributions to household decision making. This paper employs a comprehensive measure of women’s empowerment in the domestic and productive spheres, and isolates the causal effect of age at marriage, instrumented by age at menarche, on their bargaining strength, using nationally representative data from Bangladesh. Results suggest that delayed marriages result in significantly higher empowerment scores and probability of being empowered for women, because of higher likelihood in achieving adequacy in their autonomy in agricultural production, control over income, ownership of assets and rights in those assets, and ability to speak in public. Favorable impacts of delayed marriage are also found on women’s freedom of mobility, fertility choices, and their ability to decide on household expenses and investments, with the impacts likely coming via improvements in education and labor market outcomes when women married later.
Deep Trade Agreements and FDI in Partial and General Equilibrium: A Structural Estimation Framework
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2025-05-25) Larch, Mario; Yoto V, Yotov
This paper quantifies the relationships between deep trade agreements and foreign direct investment (FDI). The analysis relies on a structural framework that simultaneously enables (a) estimating the direct impact of deep trade agreements on FDI, (b) translating the partial deep trade agreement estimates into general equilibrium effects on FDI, and (c) obtaining partial deep trade agreement effects on trade and quantifying the impact of deep trade agreements on FDI through trade. The effects of deep trade agreements on both trade and FDI are sizeable, positive, and statistically significant. A counterfactual analysis suggests that together with direct and indirect channels deep trade agreements have contributed to a large but asymmetric increase in inward versus outward FDI.
Watering the Seeds of the Rural Economy: Evidence from Groundwater Irrigation in India
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2025-08-06) Boudot-Reddy, Camille; Butler, André
This study explores the impact of private investment in groundwater extraction for irrigation on the spatial and sectoral distribution of rural economic activity in India. Exploiting a kink in access to groundwater, generated from an absolute technological constraint on the operational capacity of irrigation pumps with depth of the water table, there is evidence of a significant improvement in agricultural production accompanied with modest consumption gains. Groundwater extraction causes a substantial increase in population density, but has no effect on the employment rate or labor reallocation between sectors of the economy. Furthermore, irrigated agriculture appears to provide additional employment opportunities for waged labor from surrounding non- irrigated villages.
The Gendered Impact of Digital Jobs Platforms: Experimental Evidence from Mozambique
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2025-02-12) Jones, Sam; Sen, Kunal
This study examines the impact of digital labor-market platforms on job outcomes using a randomized encouragement design embedded in a longitudinal survey of Mozambican technical-vocational college graduates. We differentiate between platforms targeting formal jobs, where jobseekers direct their search, and informal tasks, where clients seek workers. Our analysis reveals statistically insignificant intent-to-treat and complier average treatment effects for headline employment outcomes in the full sample. Notably, while the average male moderately benefits from platform usage, women do not. Instead, they are less responsive to the encouragement nudge, and female treatment compliers report higher reservation wages and lower job searches. This suggests digital platforms can inadvertently perpetuate gender disparities in labor markets.
Income and Wealth Inequality in Hong Kong, 1981–2020: The Rise of Pluto-Communism?
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2022-10-08) Piketty, Thomas; Yang, Li
The objective of this paper is to better understand the evolution and institutional roots of Hong Kong's growing economic inequality and political cleavages. By combining multiple sources of data (household surveys, fiscal data, wealth rankings, national accounts) and methodological innovations, two main findings are obtained. First, he evidence suggests a very large rise in income and wealth inequality in Hong Kong over the last four decades. Second, based on the latest opinion poll data, business elites, who carry disproportionate weight in Hong Kong's Legislative Council, are found to be more likely to vote for the pro-establishment camp (presumably to ensure that policies are passed that protect their political and economic interests). This paper argues that the unique alliance of government and business elites in a partially democratic political system is the plausible institutional root of Hong Kong's rising inequality and political cleavages.
Wealth Inequality in South Africa, 1993–2017
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2021-07-31) Chatterjee, Aroop; Czajka, Léo; Gethin, Amory
This article estimates the distribution of personal wealth in South Africa by combining microdata covering the universe of income tax returns, household surveys, and macroeconomic balance sheet statistics. South Africa is characterized by unparalleled levels of wealth concentration. The top 10 percent own 86 percent of aggregate wealth and the top 0.1 percent close to one-third. The top 0.01 percent of the distribution (3,500 individuals) concentrate 15 percent of household net worth, more than the bottom 90 percent as a whole. Such levels of inequality can be accounted for in all forms of assets at the top end, including housing, pension funds, and financial assets. There has been no sign of decreasing inequality since the end of apartheid.