World Bank Research E-Newsletter [September-October 2007]
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World Bank Research E-Newsletter [September-October 2007]
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What's at Stake for Countries in Climate Change Negotiations?
Privacy Policy
Entrepreneurship and Firm Formation across Countries
How Effective are Development Projects? New Website on Impact Evaluation
Knowledge in Development Notes
Research in Practice at the World Bank
Meeting the Challenges of Global Development: A Long Term Strategic Exercise for the World
Bank Group
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What's at Stake for Countries in Climate Change Negotiations?
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The global climate change agenda is increasingly in the news in the run up to the United Nations Climate
Change Conference in Bali this December. In a timely brief, Craig Meisner and Uwe Deichmann describe
research that provides insights on the attitudes that countries are likely to display on international treaties
regulating carbon emissions. The analysis classifies countries in terms of their vulnerability along two
dimensions. The first dimension is "source vulnerability", which looks at access to fossil fuels and
renewable energy, and the potential size of employment and income shocks following the introduction of
some form of carbon tax. The second is "impact vulnerability", or susceptibility to climate-related hazards
and sea-level rise. The research uses composite measures drawn from a geo-referenced database of
indicators related to global change and energy. Findings suggest that there is enough regional clustering
to warrant some attention to regional strategies. For example, human vulnerability to weather events is
much higher in general in South and East Asia than in the Middle East and North Africa. But countries
within regions sometimes vary widely in their orientation toward a global protocol, and there is a strong
case for country-specific tailoring. Most importantly, mechanisms for compensation and cross-subsidy
are vital when negotiating with the group of countries that have both unfavorable stakes in a global
protocol and very high existing CO2 emission levels.
Research Brief
Policy Research Working Paper
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Entrepreneurship and Firm Formation across Countries
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A new research brief by Leora Klapper introduces the 2007 World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Survey,
which measures entrepreneurial activity in 84 developing and industrial countries across the world
between 2003 and 2005. This survey allows greater cross-border comparability of data than a similar
2006 survey. The new data reveal a significant relationship between entrepreneurial activity and a host of
other indicators, including economic and financial development and growth, the quality of the legal and
regulatory environment and governance. The entry rates of new firms (defined as newly registered firms
as a percentage of total registered firms in the previous year) range between 7 and 9 percent among
various regions. In contrast, business density (total firms as a share of working age population) varies far
more widely--from over 6 percent in industrial countries to less than 1 percent in South and East Asia.
Data are also available on electronic business registration, which is shown to be related to lower costs
and a shorter number of days required to start a business. Case studies highlight the impact of
regulatory, political, and tax changes on new firm registrations. The new data raise questions about the
effects of changes in the business environment on entrepreneurial risk taking, and about which reforms
will spur faster firm registration.
Research brief
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How Effective are Development Projects? New Website on Impact Evaluation
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A new website provides comprehensive information on the Development Impact Evaluation (DIME)
initiative--an effort to evaluate the development impact of World Bank projects under the guidance of the
Bank's Chief Economist Francois Bourguignon. DIME seeks to increase both the number of World
Bank-supported impact evaluations and the ability of staff to design and carry out such evaluations in
close collaboration with government agencies in developing countries. A key aspect of the initiative is to
organize clusters of impact evaluations of priority interventions in a coordinated manner across countries
in different regions of the world. This focused approach enables comparison of the effectiveness of
specific development interventions in different country or regional settings and across alternative policy
designs. The current list of themes available online includes: early childhood development, education
service delivery reforms, conditional cash transfers, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, local
development, malaria control programs, pay-for-performance in health, rural roads, rural electrification,
urban upgrading, and youth school-to-work transition. The website also provides a feed of policy
research working papers associated with DIME.
http://www.worldbank.org/dime
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Knowledge in Development Notes
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Updated for the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in October 2007,
these Notes summarize the state of knowledge on important development issues. Broad topics include
development and aid effectiveness, private sector development and growth, trade policy, equitable
growth, governance, aid and the Millennium Development Goals, health, education, international
migration, and many others. New notes have also been posted on tropical deforestation, security, and
assessing results using impact evaluations. These notes provide a concise but reasonably deep
background on recent research findings from both inside and outside the Bank. They identify critical
linkages and challenges in development and explore what policy works, what doesn't, and what remains
uncertain. They illustrate the central role that knowledge can play in development practice and the
importance of rigorous analysis in generating that knowledge. Finally, they lay out research questions for
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World Bank Research E-Newsletter [September-October 2007]
http://newsletters.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=615...
the future.
Knowledge in Development Notes
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Research in Practice at the World Bank
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"The overall objective of research at the World Bank should be exactly the same as the
Bank's overall objective: to fight poverty (in all its dimensions) through sustainable and inclusive
processes of economic development," writes Martin Ravallion, recently appointed Director of the World
Bank's Development Research Group. His thoughts on the role of research in the practice of
development at the Bank and on how this role can be better served are outlined in an article entitled
"Research in Practice at the World Bank". This covers several overarching themes including the ways in
which development researchers can help development practitioners, and how research questions are
chosen so as to be relevant to the practice of development.
Article
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Meeting the Challenges of Global Development: A Long Term Strategic Exercise for the World Bank
Group
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The world has changed profoundly in the six decades since the International Bank for Reconstruction
and Development began operation to support post-war reconstruction in Europe and other regions. The
World Bank Group has transformed too--its current operations are far larger and more expansive than
envisioned by participants in the Bretton Woods conference in 1947 when the institution was founded.
Given the ever-evolving global environment and the changing needs of the Bank Group's clients, the
institution conducted a Long-term Strategic Exercise (LTSE) in 2007, led by Chief Economist Francois
Bourguignon. The final LTSE report published in October outlines four critical challenges that would be
central to a World Bank Group strategy for global inclusiveness and sustainability: Sub- Saharan Africa,
fragile states, inclusiveness among and within middle-income countries, and global public goods. To
address these areas, the Group must work in innovative ways and expand its lines of business. In the
new and expanded modes of intervention, knowledge services and learning will be overarching, the
paper predicts.
Paper
Of related interest: World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick's 100-Day Speech delivered on
October 10, in which he shares his initial impressions and ideas for strategic directions.
Speech
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New Policy Research Working Papers
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These papers, and all older papers, are also available using the Document Search on the Bank's
Development Economics Research website and on the Social Sciences Research Network.
4341. Review of environmental, economic and policy aspects of biofuels. (Deepak Rajagopal, David
Zilberman)
4342. Measuring the economic impact of climate change on Ethiopian agriculture : Ricardian approach .
(Temesgen Tadesse Deressa)
4343. Clothing and export diversification : still a route to growth for low-income countries? (Paul Brenton,
Mombert Hoppe)
4344. Estimating global climate change impacts on hydropower projects : applications in India, Sri Lanka
and Vietnam. (Atsushi Iimi)
4345. Sovereign natural disaster insurance for developing countries : a paradigm shift in catastrophe risk
financing. (Francis Ghesquiere, Olivier Mahul)
4346. Infant mortality over the business cycle in the developing world. (Sarah Baird, Jed Friedman,
Norbert Schady)
4347. Non-traditional crops, traditional constraints : the adoption and diffusion of export crops among
guatemalan smallholders. (Calogero Carletto, Angeli Kirk, Paul Winters, Benjamin Davis)
4348. The growth in government domestic debt : changing burdens and risks. (James A. Hanson)
4349. Gender equality, poverty and economic growth. (Andrew Morrison, Dhushyanth Raju, Nistha
Sinha)
4350. Financial development and innovation in small firms. (Siddharth Sharma)
4351. Leakage of public resources in the health sector : an empirical investigation of Chad. (Bernard
Gauthier, Waly Wane)
4352. Atmospheric stabilization of CO2 emissions : near-term reductions and intensity-based targets.
(Govinda R. Timilsina)
4353. The long-run impact of orphanhood. (Kathleen Beegle, Joachim De Weerdt, Stefan Dercon)
4354. Economy-wide and distributional impacts of an oil price shock on the south African economy. (B.
Essama-Nssah, Delfin S. Go, Marna Kearney, Vijdan Korman, Sherman Robinson, Karen Thierfelder)
4355. Assessing the distortions of mandatory pensions on labor supply decisions and human capital
accumulation : how to bridge the gap between economic theory and policy analysis. (Andras Bodor,
David Robalino, Michal Rutkowski)
4356. Corruption, business environment, and small business fixed investment in India. (Maddalena
Honorati, Taye Mengistae)
4357. Structure and performance of the services sector in transition economies. (Ana M. Fernandes)
4358. A micro-decomposition analysis of the macroeconomic determinants of human development.
(Sylvie Lambert, Martin Ravallion, Dominique van de Walle)
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4359. Limited access orders in the developing world :a new approach to the problems of development.
(Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis, Steven B. Webb, Barry R. Weingast)
4360. Foreign direct investment in Latin America during the emergence of China and India : stylized
facts. (Javier Cravino, Daniel Lederman, Marcelo Olarreaga)
4361. Substitution between foreign capital in China, India, the rest of the world, and Latin America : much
ado about nothing? (Javier Cravino, Daniel Lederman, Marcelo Olarreaga)
4362.Labor market policy in developing countries : a selective review of the literature and needs for the
future. (Gary S. Fields)
4363. Property rights in a very poor country : tenure insecurity and investment in Ethiopia. (Daniel Ayalew
Ali, Stefan Dercon, Madhur Gautam)
4364. The economic impact of climate change on agriculture in Cameroon. (Ernest L. Molua, Cornelius
M. Lambi)
4365. Fiscal policy in developing countries : a framework and some questions. (Roberto Perotti)
4366. Investing back home : return migration and business ownership in Albania. (Talip Kilic, Gero
Carletto, Benjamin Davis, Alberto Zezza)
4367. The vanishing farms? the impact of international migration on Albanian family farming. (Juna
Miluka, Gero Carletto, Benjamin Davis, Alberto Zezza)
4368. Trade costs, barriers to entry, and export diversification in developing countries. (Allen Dennis,
Ben Shepherd)
4369. Coordinating public debt management with fiscal and monetary policies : an analytical framework.
(Eriko Togo)
4370. Governance indicators : where are we, where should we be going? (Daniel Kaufmann, Aart Kraay)
4371. Europe and Central Asia's great post-communist social health insurance experiment : impacts on
health sector and labor market outcomes. (Adam Wagstaff, Rodrigo Moreno-Serra)
4372. Public expenditure and growth. (Santiago Herrera)
4373. Why is son preference declining in South Korea ? the role of development and public policy, and
the implications for China and India. (Woojin Chung, Monica Das Gupta)
4374. Sustainability of healthcare financing in the Western Balkans : an overview of progress and
challenges. (Caryn Bredenkamp, Michele Gragnolati)
4375. The determinants of rising informality in Brazil : Evidence from gross worker flows. (Mariano
Bosch, Edwin Goni, William Maloney)
4376. Absenteeism and beyond : instructional time loss and consequences. (Helen Abadzi)
4377. Early identification of at-risk youth in Latin America : an application of cluster analysis. (Emilie
Bagby, Wendy Cunningham)
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