Delivering on the Promise of Pro-Poor Growth contributes to the debate on how to accelerate poverty reduction by providing insights from eight countries that have been relatively successful in delivering pro-poor growth: Bangladesh, Brazil, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Tunisia, Uganda, and Vietnam.
... See More + It integrates growth analytics with the microanalysis of household data to determine how country policies and conditions interact to reduce poverty and to spread the benefits of growth across different income groups. This title is a useful resource for policy makers, donor agencies, academics, think tanks, and government officials seeking a practical framework to improve country level diagnostics of growth-poverty linkages.
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Other Poverty Study 37894 NOV 01, 2006
Besley, Timothy [editor]; Cord, Louise J. [editor]Disclosed
This book brings together the insights and experiences of some of the world's leading policymakers and global thought leaders, individuals who have had substantial influence on the policy reforms and development strategies in their native countries.
... See More + Sharing their unique perspectives, these practitioners of development explain the reasons for the uneven outcomes of the 1990s and, with the benefit of hindsight, draw relevant lessons for the future.
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Publication 32921 JUN 01, 2005
Besley, Timothy [editor]; Zagha, Roberto [editor]; Ahluwalia, Montek S.; Aninat, Eduardo; Balcerowicz, Leszek; Blejer, Mario I.; Botchwey, Kwesi; Cardoso, Fernando Henrique; Dervis, Kemal; Foxley, Alejandro; Gaidar, Yegor; Hunaidi, Rima Khalaf; Summers, Lawrence H.; Williamson, John; Xiaochuan, ZhouEnglishDisclosed
In this issue: Global poverty reduction via expanding opportunities; by Timothy Besley, Robin Burgess, and David Donaldson. Interview with Alberto Alesina.
... See More + Good_bye Lenin (or not)? The effect of communism on people's preferences for redistribution; by Alberto Alesina and Nicola Fuchs_Schuendeln. Economic growth, income distribution and poverty in Poland during transition; by Pierella Paci, Marcin J. Sasin, and Jos Verbeek. Latin America 1980_2005: institutions, growth and poverty; by Alvaro Garcia. Microlending to vulnerable groups: evidence from a recent UNDP survey; by Andrey Ivanov. Labor market distortions, rural_urban inequality and the opening of China's economy ; byThomas Hertel, Fan Zhai. Urban poverty in Russia and social assistance to the urban poor; by Anastasia Alexandrova and Elena Grishina. Adjustment costs of trade liberalization for the Russian labor market; by Irina Denisova. Poverty effects of Russia's WTO accession; by Thomas Rutherford, David Tarr, and Oleksandr Shepotylo. Assessing legal systems: a catalyst for reform ; byMichel Nussbaumer. Family background and schooling outcomes in the Baltic countries; by Mihails Hazans, Olga Rastrigina and Ija Trapeznikova. A troubled country? By Preston Smith
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This book brings together the insights and experiences of some of the world's leading policymakers and global thought leaders, individuals who have had substantial influence on the policy reforms and development strategies in their native countries.
... See More + Sharing their unique perspectives, these practitioners of development explain the reasons for the uneven outcomes of the 1990s and, with the benefit of hindsight, draw relevant lessons for the future.
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Publication 32921 JAN 01, 2005
Besley, Timothy [editor]; Zagha, Roberto [editor]; Ahluwalia, Montek S.; Aninat, Eduardo; Balcerowicz, Leszek; Blejer, Mario I.; Botchwey, Kwesi; Cardoso, Fernando Henrique; Dervis, Kemal; Foxley, Alejandro; Gaidar, Yegor; Hunaidi, Rima Khalaf; Summers, Lawrence H.; Williamson, John; Xiaochuan, ZhouSpanishDisclosed
The question of how much governments should spend on social programs generally, or safety nets in particular, is of great obvious interest to policymakers but is extremely difficult to address empirically.
... See More + The approach in this paper differs from others by assuming that what governments can potentially do in terms of spending on social programs is given by what governments across the world are actually observed to be doing on average. After first briefly reviewing the existing methodologies, their limitations, and what can be learned, an analysis of 63 countries spending patterns from 1972-1997 is presented using a comparative benchmarking methodology. Unconditional rankings of spending on safety nets and other health and education social programs are refined by controlling for various factors which affect the ability to fund programs. Two sets of factors are examined: (i) structural features captured by regional dummy variables and characteristics of the underlying populations; and (ii) quality of government as reflected in measures of corruption, rule of law, political pressure, and others. Separate analyses are conducted across countries for selected welfare indicators such as the infant mortality rate and life expectancy at birth and for states in India, for which additional information is available on macroeconomic factors and institutional features influencing safety nets spending. The approach generates a picture as to how states are performing relative to international expenditure norms and may be useful to policymakers in determining the appropriate level of overall spending.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 27870 AUG 01, 2003
The question of how much governments should spend on social programs generally, or safety nets in particular, is of great obvious interest to policymakers but is extremely difficult to address empirically.
... See More + The approach in this paper differs from others by assuming that what governments can potentially do in terms of spending on social programs is given by what governments across the world are actually observed to be doing on average. After first briefly reviewing the existing methodologies, their limitations, and what can be learned, an analysis of 63 countries spending patterns from 1972-1997 is presented using a comparative benchmarking methodology. Unconditional rankings of spending on safety nets and other health and education social programs are refined by controlling for various factors which affect the ability to fund programs. Two sets of factors are examined: (i) structural features captured by regional dummy variables and characteristics of the underlying populations; and (ii) quality of government as reflected in measures of corruption, rule of law, political pressure, and others. Separate analyses are conducted across countries for selected welfare indicators such as the infant mortality rate and life expectancy at birth and for states in India, for which additional information is available on macroeconomic factors and institutional features influencing safety nets spending. The approach generates a picture as to how states are performing relative to international expenditure norms and may be useful to policymakers in determining the appropriate level of overall spending.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 27870 AUG 01, 2003
Timothy Besley; Robin Burgess; Imran RasulEnglishDisclosed
This paper examines the relationship between community participation and the efficacy of interventions designed to reduce poverty. The authors develop some simple analytics that are used to structure a review of the extant literature and motivate the analysis of the impact of participation on the efficacy of public works interventions in South Africa.
... See More + These analytics suggest that because communities possess informational advantages not available to outsiders, community participation offers the prospect of lowering the cost of anti-poverty interventions. These arguments are supported both by a review of the extant literature and also by a multivariate analysis of the impact of community participation on public works projects in South Africa.
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Working Paper 27896 APR 01, 2000
Hoddinott, John; Adato, Michelle; Besley, Tim; Haddad, Lawrence
Reforming finance in transitional socialist economies. How do market failures justify interventions in rural credit markets? What makes rural finance institutions successful?
... See More + Animal health services: finding the balance between public and private delivery. The roles of the private and public sectors in enhancing the performance of seed systems. The impact of EC-92 on trade in developing countries. Is European integration bad news for developing countries? a comment on Hughes Hallett.
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Publication 17524 JAN 31, 1994
Caprio, Gerard, Jr.; Levine, Ross; Besley, Timothy; Yaron, Jacob; Umali, Dina L.; Feder, Gershon; de Haan, Cornelis; Jaffee, Steven; Srivastava, Jitendra; Hallett, A. J. Hughes; Pohl, Gerhard; Sorsa, Piritta