Publication: A Review of the Ex Post and Ex Ante Impacts of Risk
Loading...
Files in English
1,357 downloads
Published
2013-11-12
ISSN
Date
2013-12-02
Author(s)
Oviedo, Ana Maria
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper reviews evidence on how risk affects development outcomes at the household level, in particular among the poor, by providing a categorization of the effects of different types of risk on welfare, assets, human capital, and other outcomes at different points in the life cycle, but also the mechanisms through which risk affects these outcomes, offering a comprehensive view of risk, taking into account the multiple shocks that people and communities face, as well as the various ways in which people manage them. Policies need to help the most vulnerable (that is, the poorest) to avoid the costs in human capital that shocks may impose, but interactions between different risks and particular obstacles to managing them often remain unidentified, making it difficult to determine the most effective management tools. Specifically, the degree of complementarity or substitutability between interventions such as cash transfers, infrastructure, and public service provision require better understanding.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Oviedo, Ana Maria; Moroz, Harry. 2013. A Review of the Ex Post and Ex Ante Impacts of Risk. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/16333 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Income Risk, Coping Strategies, and Safety Nets(World Bank, 2002-09-01)Poor rural and urban households in developing countries face substantial risks, which they handle with risk-management and risk-coping strategies, including self-insurance through savings and informal insurance mechanisms. Despite these mechanisms, however, vulnerability to poverty linked to risk remains high. This article reviews the literature on poor households use of risk-management and risk-coping strategies. It identifies the constraints on their effectiveness and discusses policy options. It shows that risk and lumpiness limit the opportunities to use assets as insurance, that entry constraints limit the usefulness of income diversification, and that informal risk-sharing provides only limited protection, leaving some of the poor exposed to very severe negative shocks. Public safety nets are likely to be beneficial, but their impact is sometimes limited, and they may have negative externalities on households that are not covered. Collecting more information on households vulnerability to poverty through both quantitative and qualitative methods can help inform policy.Publication Lesotho Post-Disaster Needs Assessment : Heavy Rains 2010-11(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011)The Kingdom of Lesotho is a land-locked nation located in the Drakensberg mountain range in Southern Africa. The country has a total area of 30355 km² and in 2009 had an estimated population of nearly 2.1 million, with nominal per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of US$ 1080 (in 2010). About 75 percent live in rural areas, often in scattered mountain villages, while most of the urban population lives in and around the capital Maseru and the surrounding low lands. The hazards that affect Lesotho are drought, snowfall, hailstorms, strong winds, localized floods, and early frost. Lesotho's vulnerability to these hazards is compounded by a number of other underlying factors, including high levels of poverty, particularly in rural areas where the scattered nature of settlements makes the provision of and access to social services difficult. The high HIV prevalence rate has resulted in the existence of vulnerable groups, particularly Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs). This document describes the implementation of the Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) process, presents the findings of the assessment and makes initial recommendations for post-disaster recovery, reconstruction and risk reduction activities, to be considered by the Government.Publication Resilience, Equity, and Opportunity(Washington, DC, 2012)Risk and the quest for opportunity feature heavily in economic life in the 21st century. Sustained growth in many developing countries has pulled billions out of poverty and into the middle class; but this economic upturn has yet to reach billions more, who face unemployment, disability, or illness, and struggle to protect themselves and their families against shocks. The poor are particularly vulnerable, being typically more exposed to risk and less able to access opportunities. In a world filled with risk and potential, social protection and labor systems are being built, refined or reformed in almost every country to help people and family's find jobs, improve their productivity, cope with shocks, and invest in the health, education, and well-being of their children. The World Bank supports social protection and labor in client countries as a central part of its mission to reduce poverty through sustainable, inclusive growth. The World Bank's new social protection and labor strategy (2012-22) lays out ways to deepen World Bank involvement, capacity, knowledge, and impact in social protection and labor. Three overarching goals, a clear strategic direction, and engagement principles guide this new strategy: 1) the overarching goals of the strategy are to help improve resilience, equity, and opportunity for people in both low- and middle-income countries; 2) the strategic direction is to help developing countries move from fragmented approaches to more harmonized systems for social protection and labor; and 3) the engagement principles for working with clients are to be country-tailored and evidence based in operations and knowledge work, and collaborative across a range of sectors and actors this new strategy addresses gaps in the current practice by helping make social protection and labor more responsive, more productive, and more inclusive of excluded regions and groups notably low-income countries and the very poor, the disabled, those in the informal sector and, in many cases, women. The strategy is not a 'one size fits all' approach. Instead, it calls for improving evidence, building capacity, and sharing knowledge across countries to facilitate informed, country-specific, fiscally sustainable social protection and labor programs and systems. The World Bank will support this agenda not only through lending, but critically by improving evidence, building capacity, and supporting knowledge sharing and collaboration across countries. This social protection and labor strategy builds on the achievements as well as the lessons from practice over the last decade and more. Moreover, it builds on the basic analytical foundation of the first World Bank social protection and labor strategy.Publication Bailing Out the World's Poorest(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008-10)While the 2008 financial crisis is global in nature, it is likely to have heterogeneous welfare impacts within the developing world, with some countries, and some people, more vulnerable than others. It also threatens to have lasting impacts for some of those affected, notably through the nutrition and schooling of children in poor families. These features point to the need for a differentiated social policy response, aiming to provide rapid income support to those in most need, while preserving the key physical and human assets of poor people and their communities. The paper points out some mistakes in past crisis responses and identifies key design features for safety net programs that can help compensate for the likely welfare losses in the short-term while also promoting longer-term recovery.Publication Climate Change and Poverty : An Analytical Framework(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-11)Climate change and climate policies will affect poverty reduction efforts through direct and immediate impacts on the poor and by affecting factors that condition poverty reduction, such as economic growth. This paper explores this relation between climate change and policies and poverty outcomes by examining three questions: the (static) impact on poor people's livelihood and well-being; the impact on the risk for non-poor individuals to fall into poverty; and the impact on the ability of poor people to escape poverty. The paper proposes four channels that determine household consumption and through which households may escape or fall into poverty (prices, assets, productivity, and opportunities). It then discusses whether and how these channels are affected by climate change and climate policies, focusing on the exposure, vulnerability, and ability to adapt of the poor (and those vulnerable to poverty). It reviews the existing literature and offers three major conclusions. First, climate change is likely to represent a major obstacle to a sustained eradication of poverty. Second, climate policies are compatible with poverty reduction provided that (i) poverty concerns are carefully taken into account in their design and (ii) they are accompanied by the appropriate set of social policies. Third, climate change does not modify how poverty policies should be designed, but it creates greater needs and more urgency. The scale issue is explained by the fact that climate will cause more frequent and more severe shocks; the urgency, by the need to exploit the window of opportunity given to us before climate impacts are likely to substantially increase.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Business Ready 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-03)Business Ready (B-READY) is a new World Bank Group corporate flagship report that evaluates the business and investment climate worldwide. It replaces and improves upon the Doing Business project. B-READY provides a comprehensive data set and description of the factors that strengthen the private sector, not only by advancing the interests of individual firms but also by elevating the interests of workers, consumers, potential new enterprises, and the natural environment. This 2024 report introduces a new analytical framework that benchmarks economies based on three pillars: Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency. The analysis centers on 10 topics essential for private sector development that correspond to various stages of the life cycle of a firm. The report also offers insights into three cross-cutting themes that are relevant for modern economies: digital adoption, environmental sustainability, and gender. B-READY draws on a robust data collection process that includes specially tailored expert questionnaires and firm-level surveys. The 2024 report, which covers 50 economies, serves as the first in a series that will expand in geographical coverage and refine its methodology over time, supporting reform advocacy, policy guidance, and further analysis and research.Publication Global Economic Prospects, June 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-10)The global economy is facing another substantial headwind, emanating largely from an increase in trade tensions and heightened global policy uncertainty. For emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), the ability to boost job creation and reduce extreme poverty has declined. Key downside risks include a further escalation of trade barriers and continued policy uncertainty. These challenges are exacerbated by subdued foreign direct investment into EMDEs. Global cooperation is needed to restore a more stable international trade environment and scale up support for vulnerable countries grappling with conflict, debt burdens, and climate change. Domestic policy action is also critical to contain inflation risks and strengthen fiscal resilience. To accelerate job creation and long-term growth, structural reforms must focus on raising institutional quality, attracting private investment, and strengthening human capital and labor markets. Countries in fragile and conflict situations face daunting development challenges that will require tailored domestic policy reforms and well-coordinated multilateral support.Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16)Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.Publication The Container Port Performance Index 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-18)The Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) measures the time container ships spend in port, making it an important point of reference for stakeholders in the global economy. These stakeholders include port authorities and operators, national governments, supranational organizations, development agencies, and other public and private players in trade and logistics. The index highlights where vessel time in container ports could be improved. Streamlining these processes would benefit all parties involved, including shipping lines, national governments, and consumers. This fourth edition of the CPPI relies on data from 405 container ports with at least 24 container ship port calls in the calendar year 2023. As in earlier editions of the CPPI, the ranking employs two different methodological approaches: an administrative (technical) approach and a statistical approach (using matrix factorization). Combining these two approaches ensures that the overall ranking of container ports reflects actual port performance as closely as possible while also being statistically robust. The CPPI methodology assesses the sequential steps of a container ship port call. ‘Total port hours’ refers to the total time elapsed from the moment a ship arrives at the port until the vessel leaves the berth after completing its cargo operations. The CPPI uses time as an indicator because time is very important to shipping lines, ports, and the entire logistics chain. However, time, as captured by the CPPI, is not the only way to measure port efficiency, so it does not tell the entire story of a port’s performance. Factors that can influence the time vessels spend in ports can be location-specific and under the port’s control (endogenous) or external and beyond the control of the port (exogenous). The CPPI measures time spent in container ports, strictly based on quantitative data only, which do not reveal the underlying factors or root causes of extended port times. A detailed port-specific diagnostic would be required to assess the contribution of underlying factors to the time a vessel spends in port. A very low ranking or a significant change in ranking may warrant special attention, for which the World Bank generally recommends a detailed diagnostic.Publication Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-05)Digitalization is the transformational opportunity of our time. The digital sector has become a powerhouse of innovation, economic growth, and job creation. Value added in the IT services sector grew at 8 percent annually during 2000–22, nearly twice as fast as the global economy. Employment growth in IT services reached 7 percent annually, six times higher than total employment growth. The diffusion and adoption of digital technologies are just as critical as their invention. Digital uptake has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1.5 billion new internet users added from 2018 to 2022. The share of firms investing in digital solutions around the world has more than doubled from 2020 to 2022. Low-income countries, vulnerable populations, and small firms, however, have been falling behind, while transformative digital innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) have been accelerating in higher-income countries. Although more than 90 percent of the population in high-income countries was online in 2022, only one in four people in low-income countries used the internet, and the speed of their connection was typically only a small fraction of that in wealthier countries. As businesses in technologically advanced countries integrate generative AI into their products and services, less than half of the businesses in many low- and middle-income countries have an internet connection. The growing digital divide is exacerbating the poverty and productivity gaps between richer and poorer economies. The Digital Progress and Trends Report series will track global digitalization progress and highlight policy trends, debates, and implications for low- and middle-income countries. The series adds to the global efforts to study the progress and trends of digitalization in two main ways: · By compiling, curating, and analyzing data from diverse sources to present a comprehensive picture of digitalization in low- and middle-income countries, including in-depth analyses on understudied topics. · By developing insights on policy opportunities, challenges, and debates and reflecting the perspectives of various stakeholders and the World Bank’s operational experiences. This report, the first in the series, aims to inform evidence-based policy making and motivate action among internal and external audiences and stakeholders. The report will bring global attention to high-performing countries that have valuable experience to share as well as to areas where efforts will need to be redoubled.