Publication: Learning from Developing Country Experience : Growth and Economic Thought Before and After the 2008–09 Crisis
Loading...
Published
2011-08-01
ISSN
Date
2012-03-19
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it documents the changing global landscape before and after the crisis, emphasizing the shift towards multipolarity. In particular, it emphasizes the ascent of developing countries in the global economy before, during, and after the crisis. Second, it explores what these global economic changes and the recent crisis imply for shifts in the direction of research in development economics. The paper places a particular emphasis on the lessons that developed countries can learn from the developing world.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Harrison, Ann; Sepulveda, Claudia. 2011. Learning from Developing Country Experience : Growth and Economic Thought Before and After the 2008–09 Crisis. Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 5752. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/3554 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication The Economic Value of Weather Forecasts: A Quantitative Systematic Literature Review(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-10)This study systematically reviews the literature that quantifies the economic benefits of weather observations and forecasts in four weather-dependent economic sectors: agriculture, energy, transport, and disaster-risk management. The review covers 175 peer-reviewed journal articles and 15 policy reports. Findings show that the literature is concentrated in high-income countries and most studies use theoretical models, followed by observational and then experimental research designs. Forecast horizons studied, meteorological variables and services, and monetization techniques vary markedly by sector. Estimated benefits even within specific subsectors span several orders of magnitude and broad uncertainty ranges. An econometric meta-analysis suggests that theoretical studies and studies in richer countries tend to report significantly larger values. Barriers that hinder value realization are identified on both the provider and user sides, with inadequate relevance, weak dissemination, and limited ability to act recurring across sectors. Policy reports rely heavily on back-of-the-envelope or recursive benefit-transfer estimates, rather than on the methods and results of the peer-reviewed literature, revealing a science-to-policy gap. These findings suggest substantial socioeconomic potential of hydrometeorological services around the world, but also knowledge gaps that require more valuation studies focusing on low- and middle-income countries, addressing provider- and user-side barriers and employing rigorous empirical valuation methods to complement and validate theoretical models.Publication It’s Not (Just) the Tariffs: Rethinking Non-Tariff Measures in a Fragmented Global Economy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-22)As tariffs have declined, non-tariff measures (NTMs) have become central to trade policy, especially in high-income countries and regulated sectors like food and green technologies. Although NTMs may serve legitimate goals, they could also sort countries and firms into or out of markets based on compliance capacity and differences in product mix. Documenting recent advances in the estimation of ad valorem equivalents (AVEs), this paper uncovers new patterns of use and exposure of NTMs. High-income countries rely more heavily on NTMs relative to tariffs, while low- and middle-income countries face steeper AVEs on their exports. Firm-level evidence shows that NTMs disproportionately affect smaller firms, leading to market exit and concentration. Poorly designed NTMs can harm productivity and welfare, while coordinated, capacity-aware use can deliver inclusive outcomes. Policy design, transparency, and diagnostics must evolve to reflect the growing role—and risks—of NTMs in a fragmented global trade landscape.Publication Monitoring Global Aid Flows: A Novel Approach Using Large Language Models(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-04)Effective monitoring of development aid is the foundation for assessing the alignment of flows with their intended development objectives. Existing reporting systems, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Creditor Reporting System, provide standardized classification of aid activities but have limitations when it comes to capturing new areas like climate change, digitalization, and other cross-cutting themes. This paper proposes a bottom-up, unsupervised machine learning framework that leverages textual descriptions of aid projects to generate highly granular activity clusters. Using the 2021 Creditor Reporting System data set of nearly 400,000 records, the model produces 841 clusters, which are then grouped into 80 subsectors. These clusters reveal 36 emerging aid areas not tracked in the current Creditor Reporting System taxonomy, allow unpacking of “multi-sectoral” and “sector not specified” classifications, and enable estimation of flows to new themes, including World Bank Global Challenge Programs, International Development Association–20 Special Themes, and Cross-Cutting Issues. Validation against both Creditor Reporting System benchmarks and International Development Association commitment data demonstrates robustness. This approach illustrates how machine learning and the new advances in large language models can enhance the monitoring of global aid flows and inform future improvements in aid classification and reporting. It offers a useful tool that can support more responsive and evidence-based decision-making, helping to better align resources with evolving development priorities.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication The State of Global Services Trade Policies: Evidence from Recent Data(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-28)The economic environment for services trade has changed dramatically over the past 15 years, driven by rapid technological progress that has expanded the possibilities for exchanging services. How has trade policy responded to these changes? How do policy stances in a wide range of service sectors compare across economies? With its unprecedented global coverage, the Services Trade Policy Database and the associated Services Trade Restrictions Index, developed jointly by the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, help address these questions. This paper makes three principal contributions. First, it offers an in-depth discussion of the current state of services trade policies and their differences across 134 economies and 34 services subsectors. Second, the paper reveals how recent (2016–22) changes in policy stances have seen progressive liberalization by lower-income economies but stabilization or even slight policy reversals in high-income economies. This dynamic differs fundamentally from the trend that unfolded after the Great Recession over 2008–16. Third, the paper shows the implications of policy changes over the past six years on services trade costs, and it showcases how the Services Trade Policy Database’s regulatory information can inform trade negotiations, regulatory analysis, and policy making. Alongside these contributions, the paper documents updates to the Services Trade Policy Database’s economy and sector coverage and explains the latest methodological improvements made to the World Bank–World Trade Organization Services Trade Restrictions Index.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication The Growth Report : Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Development(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2008)The report has four main parts. In the first, the commission reviews the 13 economies that have sustained, high growth in the postwar period. Their growth models had some common flavors: the strategic integration with the world economy; the mobility of resources, particularly labor; the high savings and investment rates; and a capable government committed to growth. The report goes on to describe the cast of mind and techniques of policy making that leaders will need if they are to emulate such a growth model. It concludes that their policy making will need to be patient, pragmatic, and experimental. In the second part, the commission lays out the ingredients a growth strategy might include. These range from public investment and exchange rate policies to land sales and redistribution. A list of ingredients is not enough to make a dish, of course, as Bob Solow, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and a member of the Commission, points out. The commission, however, refrains from offering policy makers a recipe, or growth strategy, to follow. This is because no single recipe exists. Timing and circumstance will determine how the ingredients should be combined, in what quantities, and in what sequence. Formulating a full growth strategy, then, is not a job for this Commission but for a dedicated team of policy makers and economists, working on a single economy over time. Instead of a country-specific recipe, the commission offers some more general thoughts on the opportunities and constraints faced by nations in Sub-Saharan Africa, countries rich in resources, small states with fewer than 2 million people, and middle-income countries that have lost their economic momentum. In the final part of the report, the commission discusses global trends that are beyond the control of any single developing-country policy maker. Global warming is one example; the surge in protectionist sentiment another; the rise of commodity prices a third. In addition, the commission discusses the aging of the world population and the potential dangers of America's external deficit. These trends are new enough that the 13 high-growth economies of the postwar period did not have to face them. The question is whether they now make it impossible for other countries to emulate that postwar success.Publication Shifting Patterns of Economic Growth and Rethinking Development(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-04)This paper provides an historical overview of both the evolution of the economic performance of the developing world and the evolution of economic thought on development policy. The 20th century was broadly characterized by divergence between high-income countries and the developing world, with only a limited number (less than 10 percent of the economies in the world) managing to progress out of lower or middle-income status to high-income status. The last decade witnessed a sharp reversal from a pattern of divergence to convergence --particularly for a set of large middle-income countries. The latter phenomenon was also driven by increasing economic ties among developing countries, and on the intellectual scale, increased knowledge generation and sharing among the developing countries. Re-thinking development policy implies confronting these realities: 20th century economic divergence, the experience of the handful of success stories, and the recent rise of the multi-polar growth world. The paper provides descriptive data and a literature survey to document these trends. The paper also provides a brief survey of the role of multilateral institutions -- in particular, the World Bank -- in this changing context and offers suggestions on how they can adapt their strategies to improve development outcomes.Publication Reshaping Tomorrow : Is South Asia Ready for the Big Leap?(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011)What will South Asia look like in 2025? The optimistic outlook is that India, which accounts for 80 per cent of the regional economic output, is headed towards double-digit growth rates. South Asia too will grow rapidly, primarily due to India. The pessimistic outlook is that, given huge transformational challenges facing the region, growth should not be taken for granted. Which of these two outlooks is likely to prevail? This is what this book is all about. It is about the future, and not the past, and how to make smart choices about the future. There is strong empirical justification in favor of the optimistic outlook. Growth will be propelled higher by young demographics, improved governance, rising middle class, and the next wave of globalization. There is democracy, for the first time since independence, in all countries in the region. Young demographics will result in nearly 20 million more people joining the labour force, every year, for the next two decades. Almost a billion people will join the ranks of the middle class. India's middle class is well-educated, enterprising, innovative, and more demanding of better services, products, and governance. The region will benefit from the new wave of globalization in services, and increased international migration and human mobility. Indeed the drivers of growth seem to have already moved from the rich world to the poor world. The room for catch-up is huge, given the big gap in average income between South Asia and the rich countries.Publication South Africa Economic Update, July 2012(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012)Section one provides an economic update and assesses the challenges and near-term prospects facing the South African economy. In particular, it looks at the implications for South Africa of the resurgence of uncertainty in global financial markets, the surge in capital flows to safe-haven assets, the continuing Euro zone crisis, and signs of slowdown in some of the large emerging market economies. Section two focuses on inequality of opportunity in South Africa. For the first time, using innovative techniques, this section presents an analysis of the interlinked inequality of opportunities for children and for access to employment. Every society has a degree of inequality of outcomes that reflects differences in innate human capabilities, effort, education, experience, and skills. But a recognized goal for public policy is to ensure at least the equality of opportunity for every individual in a country. Many countries have used this new approach to develop targeted policies to promote such equality of opportunity and to monitor and evaluate the success of public programs.Publication The Financial Crisis and Its Impacts on Global Agriculture(2010-09-01)The financial crisis arose in the industrial countries, but has affected developing countries through higher interest rates, sharp changes in commodity prices, and reductions in investment, trade, migration and remittances. For most low-income countries, shocks that affect food prices or wage rates for unskilled workers seem likely to have the largest impact on poverty, with the declines in key food prices associated with the crisis helping to reduce poverty, while declining trade, investment, and remittance flows have had adverse impacts on the poor. Policies to address the crisis must include measures to deal with financial sector problems, the resulting reductions in aggregate demand, and the particular vulnerabilities of poor people. Given the complexity of the impacts from financial crises and commodity price shocks, there is a strong case for developing better social safety net policies that can offset the adverse impacts of a wide range of different shocks on poor people without creating costly market distortions.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication World Development Report 2006(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.Publication Doing Business 2014 : Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises(Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2013-10-28)Eleventh in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 185 economies, Doing Business 2014 measures regulations affecting 11 areas of everyday business activity: Starting a business, Dealing with construction permits, Getting electricity, Registering property, Getting credit, Protecting investors, Paying taxes, Trading across borders, Enforcing contracts, Closing a business, Employing workers. The report updates all indicators as of June 1, 2013, ranks economies on their overall “ease of doing business”, and analyzes reforms to business regulation – identifying which economies are strengthening their business environment the most. The Doing Business reports illustrate how reforms in business regulations are being used to analyze economic outcomes for domestic entrepreneurs and for the wider economy. Doing Business is a flagship product by the World Bank and IFC that garners worldwide attention on regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship. More than 60 economies use the Doing Business indicators to shape reform agendas and monitor improvements on the ground. In addition, the Doing Business data has generated over 870 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals since its inception.Publication World Development Report 2011(World Bank, 2011)The 2011 World development report looks across disciplines and experiences drawn from around the world to offer some ideas and practical recommendations on how to move beyond conflict and fragility and secure development. The key messages are important for all countries-low, middle, and high income-as well as for regional and global institutions: first, institutional legitimacy is the key to stability. When state institutions do not adequately protect citizens, guard against corruption, or provide access to justice; when markets do not provide job opportunities; or when communities have lost social cohesion-the likelihood of violent conflict increases. Second, investing in citizen security, justice, and jobs is essential to reducing violence. But there are major structural gaps in our collective capabilities to support these areas. Third, confronting this challenge effectively means that institutions need to change. International agencies and partners from other countries must adapt procedures so they can respond with agility and speed, a longer-term perspective, and greater staying power. Fourth, need to adopt a layered approach. Some problems can be addressed at the country level, but others need to be addressed at a regional level, such as developing markets that integrate insecure areas and pooling resources for building capacity Fifth, in adopting these approaches, need to be aware that the global landscape is changing. Regional institutions and middle income countries are playing a larger role. This means should pay more attention to south-south and south-north exchanges, and to the recent transition experiences of middle income countries.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.