In recent years, alongside democratic backsliding and security threats, censorship is increasingly used by governments and other societal actors to control the media.
... See More + Who is likely to be affected by censorship and why? Does censorship as a form of punishment coexist with or act as a substitute for reward-based forms of media capture such as market concentration or bribes? First, this argues that censors employ censorship only toward certain targets that provide information to politically consequential audiences, while allowing media that caters to elite audiences to report freely. Second, the paper hypothesizes that coercion and inducements are substitutes, with censorship being employed primarily when bribes and ownership fail to control information. To test these hypotheses, a new data set was built of 9,000 salient censorship events and their characteristics across 196 countries between 2001 and 2015. The study finds strong empirical support for the theory of media market segmentation.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8556 AUG 16, 2018
This paper investigates empirically the linkages between corporate debt overhang and investment activity at the firm level for a cross section of large-sized emerging market and developing economies.
... See More + It analyzes the extent to which investment may be discouraged by high levels of debt that put at risk future profits, as well as firm dimensions that may sharpen the debt-investment link. Using balance sheet data from a broad set of emerging market and developing economy firms, the analysis suggests that corporate debt overhang imposes a sizable effect on investment at the firm level. This linkage is more pronounced for large firms and highly leveraged firms. The analysis also finds evidence of a nonlinear effect, in which debt overhang discourages investment more severely under high levels of indebtedness.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8553 AUG 15, 2018
A debt management system is the backbone of any sovereign debt management office. A robust, well-functioning and user-friendly system allows governments to strengthen their debt management environment.
... See More + This study aims to contribute to the literature on (i) the essential requirements of a debt management system, (ii) the selection criteria for software that fits the system modernization and integration needs of a debt management office, and (iii) how the solutions currently used by governments meet those requirements. It also contains the results of a survey that shows the current landscape of solutions used by a sample of debt management offices from 31 countries. The target audience is emerging and developing countries that seek to strengthen the information technology platform they use for debt management. The study concludes that it is fundamental for a debt management system to meet the debt management office's evolving needs, while at the same time differentiating among functions and coverage that are mandatory, relevant, and desirable. This differentiation provides a helpful guide for debt managers deciding between building a tailored debt management system from scratch or purchasing an off-the-shelf system. The survey results suggest that current systems can handle the critical functions and instruments of debt management offices. However, if the nature of respondents' debt portfolios evolves over time, system limitations may present challenges. One clear takeaway is that debt managers should consider the ability of their debt management system to interact with external (for example, financial management information system) information technology platforms as an essential characteristic of their information ecosystem.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8544 AUG 08, 2018
This paper argues that relying on major policy distortions to create a domestic automotive industry through import substitution generates significant costs for the economy, in terms of foregone output, lower consumption, and reduced overall welfare.
... See More + To bring this issue into sharp relief, the paper focuses on the extreme case of an outright vehicle import ban (complemented by an export subsidy), which gives rise to a misallocation of resources that will ultimately reduce the overall productivity of labor. More specifically, a share of the labor force is diverted to the production of previously-imported vehicles, which would have not happened in the absence of import restrictions. In particular, the output of the final good goes down; consumption is lowered; and overall welfare is reduced. Importantly, the equilibrium stock of vehicles available in this economy is also reduced, defeating the purpose of the imposition of import substitution. Additionally, the creation of an automotive sector is not neutral with respect to factor prices: the resulting lower wages imply that revenues in the newly-created sector are generated at the expense of labor income. Technological change in the automotive industry might act as a countervailing force for labor misallocation, albeit only partially.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8542 AUG 07, 2018
Martins,Marco A.C.; Araujo,Jorge A. De Thompson R.Disclosed
The debate on the environment-poverty nexus is inconclusive, with past research unable to identify the causal dynamics. This paper uses a unique global panel data set that links (survey and census derived) poverty data to measures of environmental quality at the subnational level.
... See More + The analysis uses vegetation vigor as a proxy for above-ground environmental quality and soil fertility as proxy for below-ground environmental quality. Rainfall is used to account for endogeneity issues in an instrumental variable approach. This is the first global study using quasi-experimental methods to uncover to what degree environmental quality matters for poverty reduction. The paper draws three main conclusions. (1) The environment matters for poverty reduction. The panel regression suggests that a 10 percent increase in vegetation vigor is associated with a poverty headcount ratio reduction of nearly 0.7 percentage point in rural areas, and 1 percentage point in Sub-Saharan Africa. A 10 percent increase in soil quality leads to a roughly 2 percentage point decrease in poverty rates in rural areas and in Sub-Saharan Africa. (2) The effects of environmental quality on poverty are stronger than its effects on average income, suggesting that the poor benefit disproportionately from environmental quality. (3) In situ environmental quality improvements are pro-poor, in contrast to urbanization. Although urbanization has highly significant and sizable correlations with GDP per capita, it is not significantly correlated with poverty reduction.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8537 AUG 03, 2018
This World Bank Group Boards' calendar covers the period of August to October 2018, specifying the Boards' engagements, such as meetings and briefings.
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Disputes over land access and control often escalate into violence and conflict leading to dispossession and forced displacement within and across borders.
... See More + Estimates indicate that 56 percent of conflicts are related to land and that most conflicts take place in developing countries. At the end of 2015, 95 percent of the 65 million refugees and internally displaced people were living in developing countries. The central role of land to livelihood, identity and power, most notably in rural-based economies explains why disputes over access and control of land frequently escalates into armed conflict and mass displacement. This Note is part of a series of World Bank Thematic Guidance Notes on land and conflict that present key issues, challenges and guiding principles to address land tenure issues in conflict and post-conflict environments. The audience for these Notes is both laymen and practitioners who are preparing a project or program in a conflict or post-conflict setting, including multi-lateral and bi-lateral institutions, governments, NGOs and others. These Guidance Notes seek to provide guidance on where to start and what questions to ask, not to be an exhaustive ‘how to’ for land and conflict issues. While these Notes are meant to stand alone, they are inter-related and may cross-reference relevant material from other Notes.
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Disputes over land access and control often escalate into violence and conflict leading to dispossession and forced displacement within and across borders.
... See More + Estimates indicate that 56 percent of conflicts are related to land and that most conflicts take place in developing countries. At the end of 2015, 95 percent of the 65 million refugees and internally displaced people were living in developing countries. The central role of land to livelihood, identity and power, most notably in rural-based economies explains why disputes over access and control of land frequently escalates into armed conflict and mass displacement. This Note is part of a series of World Bank Thematic Guidance Notes on land and conflict that present key issues, challenges and guiding principles to address land tenure issues in conflict and post-conflict environments. The audience for these Notes is both laymen and practitioners who are preparing a project or program in a conflict or post-conflict setting, including multi-lateral and bi-lateral institutions, governments, NGOs and others. These Guidance Notes seek to provide guidance on where to start and what questions to ask, not to be an exhaustive ‘how to’ for land and conflict issues. While these Notes are meant to stand alone, they are inter-related andmay cross-reference relevant material from other Notes
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Disputes over land access and control often escalate into violence and conflict leading to dispossession and forced displacement within and across borders.
... See More + Estimates indicate that 56 percent of conflicts are related to land and that most conflicts take place in developing countries. At the end of 2015, 95 percent of the 65 million refugees and internally displaced people were living in developing countries. The central role of land to livelihood, identity and power, most notably in rural-based economies explains why disputes over access and control of land frequently escalates into armed conflict and mass displacement. This Note is part of a series of World Bank Thematic Guidance Notes on land and conflict that present key issues, challenges and guiding principles to address land tenure issues in conflict and post-conflict environments. The audience for these Notes is both laymen and practitioners who are preparing a project or program in a conflict or post-conflict setting, including multi-lateral and bi-lateral institutions, governments, NGOs and others. These Guidance Notes seek to provide guidance on where to start and what questions to ask, not to be an exhaustive ‘how to’ for land and conflict issues. While these Notes are meant to stand alone, they are inter-related and may cross-reference relevant material from other Notes.
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This paper undertakes two calculations, one for all developing countries, the other for 34 developing countries that together account for 90 percent of the world's stunted children.
... See More + The first calculation asks how much lower a country's per capita income is today as a result of some of its workers having been stunted in childhood. The analysis uses a development accounting framework, relying on micro-econometric estimates of the effects of childhood stunting on adult wages, through the effects on years of schooling, cognitive skills, and height, parsing out the relative contribution of each set of returns to avoid double counting. The estimates show that, on average, the per capita income penalty from stunting is around 7 percent. The second calculation estimates the economic value and the costs associated with scaling up a package of nutrition interventions using the same methodology and set of assumptions used in the first calculation. The analysis considers a package of 10 nutrition interventions for which data are available on the effects and costs. The estimated rate-of-return from gradually introducing this program over a period of 10 years in the 34 countries is17 percent, and the corresponding benefit-cost ratio is 15:1.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8536 AUG 01, 2018
Galasso,Emanuela; Wagstaff,Robert Adam StephenDisclosed
This Executive Directors' strategic engagements work program covers FY19 Q1 and Q2, and updated reports and other documents to be circulated for information for FY19 Q1.
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The report confirms that groundwater, if managed sustainably, can be an important development resource across the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region.
... See More + The report presents data related to groundwater resource characteristics and highlights the opportunities and challenges presented in promoting sustainable and resilient groundwater development in the region. Groundwater has significant potential to support human and economic development in SSA, as it has done in other global regions. The report recommends investment in expanding groundwater development as an integral component of national water resources strategy for countries in SSA. Investment in groundwater can be financially viable and a wise policy option to support socioeconomic development if safeguards specific to groundwater are incorporated into investmentprograms. The expansion should be designed within a sustainable framework responsive to thespecial social and cultural and economic features of groundwater resources, compounded bytheir special hydrological, environmental and engineering dimensions to guide sustainabledevelopment of this important component of water resources.
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The World Bank Monthly Operational Summary (MOS) reports on the status of projects in the World Bank's pipeline from the time the operation is identified to the signing of the Loan, Credit, or Grant Agreement.
... See More + It is a detailed accounting of the projects included in the country lending programs that are actively being prepared for implementation. The lending programs reflect the Bank's strategy for each member country as set out in the Country Partnership Framework (CPF) presented to the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank. General information about business opportunities under Bank loans, credits, and grants may be obtained from the World Bank's Procurement Policy and Services Group's website at http://www.worldbank.org/en/projectsoperations/products-and-services/procurementprojects-programs.
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On July 30, 2018 Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) Council of Governors adopted resolution number one hundred and four. It was resolved that the 2018 regular election of directors shall take place in accordance with the attached rules and a regular election of directors shall take place in connection with the Annual Meeting of the Council of Governors in 2020.
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On July 30, 2018, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) Board of Governors adopted resolution number six hundred and sixty-one.
... See More + It was resolved that the attached Rules for the 2018 Regular Election of Executive Directors are approved and a Regular Election of Executive Directors shall take place in connection with the Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors in 2020.
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Some of the headings included in this issue of the Development Economics Prospects Group (DECPG) weekly global economic newsletters are as follows: taking stock; weekly insight: do fiscal multipliers depend on fiscal positions?
... See More + Major data releases; activity and inflation; financial markets; and commodity prices.
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