Private schools that cater to low-income students are popular with parents seeking alternatives to government schools. But these private schools, which are often owned by local entrepreneurs, may lack the resources and incentives to expand enrollment or improve quality.
... See More + They generally operate in markets where access to credit is limited and where there aren't loan products tailored to their needs. This means that any improvements have to be financed through school fees or their own funds. When donors and investors step in to provide support to private schools, they tend to focus on larger operators with a chain of schools, which typically implies selective funding to a limited number of schools rather than broad support to the schooling market. Is this the best way to support private schools that cater to poor families? Could supporting the entire market, rather than select schools—or chains—lead to more competitive pressure to invest in quality improvements that promote students’ learning? And is a market for loans for private schools sustainable?
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Growth fluctuations exhibit substantial synchronization across countries, which has been viewed as reflecting a global business cycle driven by shocks with worldwide reach, or spillovers resulting from local real and/or financial linkages between countries.
... See More + This paper brings these two perspectives together by analyzing international growth fluctuations in a setting that allows for both global shocks and spatial dependence. Using annual data for 117 countries over 1970-2016, the paper finds that the cross-country dependence of aggregate growth is the combined result of global shocks summarized by a latent common factor and spatial effects accruing through the growth of nearby countries -- with proximity measured by bilateral trade linkages or geographic distance. The latent global factor shows a strong positive correlation with worldwide TFP growth. Countries' exposure to global shocks rises with their openness to trade and the degree of commodity specialization of their economies. Despite its simplicity, the empirical model fits the data well, especially for advanced countries. Ignoring the cross-country dependence of growth, by omitting spatial effects or common shocks (or both) from the analysis, leads to a marked deterioration of the empirical model's in-sample explanatory power and out-of-sample forecasting performance.
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Comprehensive and is gradually being improved; 12 laws are relevant for water resources management and usage; more legal instruments are under preparation to implement the 2012 Law on Water Resources by MONRE; further instruments are required, but outstanding, from other ministries.
... See More + Highly decentralized responsibilities to local authorities; weak capacities at local institutional levels; some overlaps in tasks between Ministries; coordination between ministries and within ministries between central and local levels within an integrated framework is weak. Water resources assessments are underway but face implementation problems. Development of the master plan on water resources is delayed, resulting in some provinces and sectors preparing their own plans, risking an unintegrated and piecemeal approach. Sector needs to integrate within the recently approved Law on Planning in 2017 that aims to streamline and unify planning. Integrated planning remains a challenge; development of intra-provincial river basin planning remains slow; establishment of river basin organizations (RBO) only limited success; existing RBOs are not fully empowered as they are not state management agencies and are dependent on state budget allocations.
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To focus on strengthening the institutional capacity of national systems by linking financing to defined results, the World Bank’s Program-for-Results (PforR) requires a deep understanding of behavioral and institutional bottlenecks that may affect the success of a government program.
... See More + Key to achievements under any public program is the ability, motivation, and productivity of civil servants. They largely determine policy formulation and implementation as well as the government’s ability to effectively deliver on programs and services. A rigorous assessment of bureaucratic capability is a priority during the preparation and implementation phases under a PforR.
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Development break-throughs based on the Industrial Revolution 4.0 to increase productivity, quality, efficiency and competitiveness of the economy.
... See More + Achieve rapid and sustainable development; soon turn Vietnam into a modern industrialized nation. Improving the effectiveness and efficiency of state economic management and state capability in enabling development.
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Development break-throughs based on the Industrial Revolution 4.0 to increase productivity, quality, efficiency and competitiveness of the economy.
... See More + Achieve rapid and sustainable development; soon turn Vietnam into a modern industrialized nation. Improving the effectiveness and efficiency of state economic management and state capability in enabling development.
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This paper investigates the impact of World Bank development policy operations on the quality of economic policy during the period 1998-2015. A new theoretical framework distinguishes among three effects that have been conflated hitherto: (a) marginal impacts of additional policy actions within the current year; (b) length of the policy engagement with client countries, and (c) changes over time in the marginal impact of policy actions.
... See More + The analysis focuses on policy actions that are particularly relevant for the quality of economic management. Consistent with past research, robust panel estimations indicate that development policy financing has a positive effect on the quality of government economic policy. The econometric work suggests that the nature of the policy dialogue and quality of the engagement with government matter more than the sheer number of policy actions adopted. There is also tentative evidence that although the positive impact is sustained over time, the initial years of an engagement are the most productive for improvement in government economic policy. This may be linked to the fact that over time the reform program changes from 'first-generation' to more complex 'second-generation' policy actions.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8645 NOV 13, 2018
Is the variation in bilateral trade flows across countries primarily due to differences in the number of exporting firms (the extensive margin) or in the average size of an exporter (the intensive margin)?
... See More + And how does this affect the estimation and quantitative implications of the Melitz (2003) trade model? The benchmark Melitz model with Pareto-distributed firm productivity and fixed costs of exporting, predicts that, conditional on the fixed costs of exporting, all variation in exports across trading partners should occur on the extensive margin. This paper subjects this theoretical prediction to a reality check drawing upon the World Bank's Exporter Dynamics Database (EDD) which has firm-level exports from 50 developing countries to all destinations. Around 50 percent of the variation in exports across trading partners is shown to be along the intensive margin, contradicting the benchmark Melitz-Pareto model. The paper finds that moving from a Pareto to a lognormal distribution of firm productivity allows the Melitz model to successfully match the role of the intensive margin evident in the EDD. The paper then studies the implications of our findings for quantitative trade theory. Using likelihood methods and the EDD, a generalized Melitz model with a joint lognormal distribution for firm productivity, fixed costs and demand shifters is estimated, and exact hat algebra is used to quantify the counterfactual effects of a decline in trade costs on trade flows and welfare in the estimated model. Finally, these effects are compared to those that would be predicted by the Melitz-Pareto model, with the Pareto shape parameter chosen to match the average trade elasticity implied by the estimated Melitz-lognormal model. The paper shows that the effects on welfare turn out to be quite close to those in the standard Melitz-Pareto model even though the effects on trade flows remain different.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8625 OCT 26, 2018
This is a statement by Ignazio Visco, Governor of the Bank of Italy, on behalf of the Constituency of Albania, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, San Marino and Timor-Leste, at the ninety-eighth meeting of the Development Committee on October 13, 2018.
... See More + He discusses with the global economic activity weaker than the year prior as a result of downside risks becoming more prominent, he is seeing great potential with the 2019 World Development Report and the Bali Fintech Agenda that was prepared by the IMF and World Bank.
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This is a statement by Mr. Steven T. Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, at the ninety-eighth meeting of the Development Committee on October 13, 2018.
... See More + He discusses 6 key issues: (1) Strengthening Global Growth. (2) Implementation of World Bank Group Reforms. (3) Emerging and Low-Income Country Debt Vulnerabilities. (4) Securing IDA Commitments. (5) Increasing Accountability. (6) Fintech Agenda.
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This is a statement by H.E. Eduardo Guardia, Minister of Finance of Brazil on behalf of Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Panama, Philippines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago, at the ninety-eighth meeting of the Development Committee on October 13, 2018.
... See More + He discusses the importance of the changing times with fintech, human capital and disruptive technologies.
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