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Showing papers by "World Bank published in 2004"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Botero et al. as discussed by the authors investigated the regulation of labor markets through employment, collective relations, and social security laws in 85 countries and found that the political power of the left is associated with more stringent labor regulations and more generous social security systems, and that socialist, French and Scandinavian legal origin countries have sharply higher levels of labor regulation than do common law countries.
Abstract: Author(s): Botero, Juan; Djankov, Simeon; La Porta, Rafael; Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio; Shleifer, Andrei | Abstract: We investigate the regulation of labor markets through employment, collective relations, and social security laws in 85 countries. We find that the political power of the left is associated with more stringent labor regulations and more generous social security systems, and that socialist, French and Scandinavian legal origin countries have sharply higher levels of labor regulation than do common law countries. However, the effects of legal origins are larger, and explain more of the variation in regulations, than those of politics. Heavier regulation of labor is associated with lower labor force participation and higher unemployment, especially of the young. These results are most naturally consistent with legal theories, according to which countries have pervasive regulaory styles inherited from the transplantation of legal systems.

1,615 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a study of firm-level corporate governance practices across emerging markets, and a greater understanding of the environments under which corporate governance matters more is provided, and the authors provide evidence showing that firms can partially compensate for ineffective laws, and enforcement by establishing good governance, and providing credible investor protection.

1,429 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This analysis of the global workforce proposes that mobilisation and strengthening of human resources for health, neglected yet critical, is central to combating health crises in some of the world's poorest countries and for building sustainable health systems in all countries.

1,402 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Thorsten Beck1, Ross Levine1
TL;DR: This article investigated the impact of stock markets and banks on economic growth using a panel data set for the period 1976-98 and applying recent GMM techniques developed for dynamic panels and found that stock markets positively influence economic growth and these findings are not due to potential biases induced by simultaneity, omitted variables or unobserved country-specific effects.
Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of stock markets and banks on economic growth using a panel data set for the period 1976-98 and applying recent GMM techniques developed for dynamic panels. On balance, we find that stock markets and banks positively influence economic growth and these findings are not due to potential biases induced by simultaneity, omitted variables or unobserved country-specific effects.

1,392 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the conceptual and empirical foundations of community-based and driven development (CBD) initiatives are reviewed, and the authors find that projects that rely on community participation have not been particularly effective at targeting the poor.
Abstract: Community-based (and driven) development (CBD) projects have become an important form of development assistance, with the World Bank's portfolio alone approximating 7 billion dollars. This paper reviews the conceptual and empirical foundations of CBD/CDD initiatives. Given the importance of the topic, there are, unfortunately, a dearth of well-designed evaluations of such projects. There is, however, enough quantitative and qualitative evidence, from studies that have either been published in peer-reviewed publications or have been conducted by independent researchers, to gain some instructive lessons. We find that projects that rely on community participation have not been particularly effective at targeting the poor. There is some evidence that CBD/CDD projects create effective community infrastructure, but not a single study establishes a causal relationship between any outcome and participatory elements of a CBD project. Most CBD projects are dominated by elites and, in general, the targeting of poor communities as well as project quality tend to be markedly worse in more unequal communities. However, a number of studies find a U shaped relationship between inequality and project outcomes. We also find that a distinction between potentially 'benevolent' forms of elite domination and more pernicious types of 'capture' is likely to be important for understanding project dynamics and outcomes. Several qualitative studies indicate that the sustainability of CBD initiatives depends crucially on an enabling institutional environment, which requires upward commitment. Equally, the literature indicates that community leaders need to be downwardly accountable to avoid a variant of 'supply driven demand driven development'. Qualitative evidence also suggests that external agents strongly influence project success. However, facilitators are often poorly trained and inexperienced, particularly when programs are rapidly scaled up. Overall, a naive application of complex contextual concepts like 'participation', 'social capital' and 'empowerment' - is endemic among project implementers and contributes to poor design and implementation. In sum, the evidence suggests that CBD/CDD is best done in a context-specific manner, with a long time-horizon, and with careful and well designed monitoring and evaluation systems.

1,306 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article showed that rural economic growth was far more important to national poverty reduction than urban economic growth, and that rural areas accounted for the bulk of the gains to the poor, though migration to urban areas helped.

1,273 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assess the extent to which the grant actually reached the intended end-user (schools) using panel data from a unique survey of primary schools, and find that schools in better-off communities managed to claim a higher share of their entitlements.
Abstract: According to official statistics, 20 percent of Uganda's total public expenditure was spent on education in the mid-1990s, most of it on primary education. One of the large public programs was a capitation grant to cover schools' nonwage expenditures. Using panel data from a unique survey of primary schools, we assess the extent to which the grant actually reached the intended end-user (schools). The survey data reveal that during 1991–1995, the schools, on average, received only 13 percent of the grants. Most schools received nothing. The bulk of the school grant was captured by local officials (and politicians). The data also reveal considerable variation in grants received across schools, suggesting that rather than being passive recipients of flows from the government, schools use their bargaining power to secure greater shares of funding. We find that schools in better-off communities managed to claim a higher share of their entitlements. As a result, actual education spending, in contrast to budget allocations, is regressive. Similar surveys in other African countries confirm that Uganda is not a special case.

987 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article presented estimates of six dimensions of governance for 199 countries and territories for 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002 developed in the context of an ongoing project to measure governance across countries.
Abstract: This article presents estimates of six dimensions of governance for 199 countries and territories for 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002 developed in the context of an ongoing project to measure governance across countries. Section one describes the data used in developing this round of the governance indicators, which include several new sources. Data sources used in the earlier studies were updated forward to 2002 and backward to 1996, and previously estimated indicators for 1998 and 2000were revised to reflect the new data. The aggregation procedure, described in section two, provides not only estimates of governance for each country but also measures of the precision or reliability of these estimates. Although the new data have improved the precision of the governance indicators, the margins of error remain large relative to the units in which governance is measured, so that comparisons across countries and especially over time should be made with caution.

935 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the conceptual foundations of community-based and driven development (CBD/CDD) initiatives are reviewed, and the authors find that projects that rely on community participation have not been particularly effective at targeting the poor.
Abstract: Community-based (and driven) development (CBD/CDD) projects have become an important form of development assistance, with the World Bank's portfolio alone approximating 7 billion dollars. This report reviews the conceptual foundations of CBD/CDD initiatives. The authors find that projects that rely on community participation have not been particularly effective at targeting the poor. There is some evidence that CBD/CDD projects create effective community infrastructure, but not a single study establishes a causal relationship between any outcome and participatory elements of a CBD project. Qualitative evidence suggests that external agents strongly influence project success. The evidence suggests that CBD/CDD is best done in a context-specific manner, with a long time-horizon, and with careful and well-designed monitoring and evaluation systems.

895 citations


MonographDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors use survey data on a sample of over 10,000 firms from 80 countries to assess how successful a priori classifications are in distinguishing between financially constrained and unconstrained firms, and more generally, the determinants of financing obstacles of firms.

832 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Agnes Kiss1
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify conditions under which CBET is, and is not, likely to be effective, efficient and sustainable compared with alternative approaches for conserving biodiversity, and highlight the need for better data and more rigorous analysis of both conservation and economic impacts.
Abstract: Community-based ecotourism (CBET) has become a popular tool for biodiversity conservation, based on the principle that biodiversity must pay for itself by generating economic benefits, particularly for local people. There are many examples of projects that produce revenues for local communities and improve local attitudes towards conservation, but the contribution of CBET to conservation and local economic development is limited by factors such as the small areas and few people involved, limited earnings, weak linkages between biodiversity gains and commercial success, and the competitive and specialized nature of the tourism industry. Many CBET projects cited as success stories actually involve little change in existing local land and resource-use practices, provide only a modest supplement to local livelihoods, and remain dependent on external support for long periods, if not indefinitely. Investment in CBET might be justified in cases where such small changes and benefits can yield significant conservation and social benefits, although it must still be recognized as requiring a long term funding commitment. Here, I aim to identify conditions under which CBET is, and is not, likely to be effective, efficient and sustainable compared with alternative approaches for conserving biodiversity. I also highlight the need for better data and more rigorous analysis of both conservation and economic impacts.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The movestay Stata command as discussed by the authors implements the maximum likelihood method to fit the endogenous switching regression model, which is used in the movestays Stata Command (MSC) command.
Abstract: This article describes the movestay Stata command, which implements the maximum likelihood method to fit the endogenous switching regression model.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article presented a new assessment of progress in reducing poverty over 1981-2001 using more consistent data and methods, closely following the methods underlying the Attacking Poverty (World Bank 2000) numbers, which had been based on Chen and Ravallion (2000).
Abstract: This article offers a new assessment of progress in reducing poverty over 1981–2001 using more consistent data and methods, closely following the methods underlying the Attacking Poverty (World Bank 2000) numbers, which had been based on Chen and Ravallion (2000). In common with our past estimates, the authors draw on nationally representative surveys as much as possible. The article reviews the methods of measuring poverty from those surveys and notes any changes from past estimates, though the authors refer readers to other sources for further discussion of our methods and alternatives. The new estimates presented here supersede all our previous estimates in that the authors recalculate everything back in time on a consistent basis incorporating the new data. The authors summarize our results in a standard regional tabulation following previous work. However, the authors have also created a Web-based interactive tool, PovcalNet, that allows users to access the primary distributions and so estimate poverty measures for alternative country groupings or for a selected set of individual countries (http:/ /iresearch.worldbank.org/povcalnet). The article first describes the coverage of the survey data. It then discusses the poverty line and exchange rates, followed by the measures of poverty, and then presents the main results.

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the determinants of shipping costs to the U.S. with a large database of more than 300,000 observations per year on shipments of products aggregated at six-digit HS level from different ports around the world.
Abstract: Recent literature has emphasized the importance of transport costs and infrastructure in explaining trade, access to markets, and increases in per capita income. For most Latin American countries, transport costs are a greater barrier to U.S. markets than import tariffs. We investigate the determinants of shipping costs to the U.S. with a large database of more than 300,000 observations per year on shipments of products aggregated at six-digit HS level from different ports around the world. Distance volumes and product characteristics matter. In addition, we find that ports efficiency is an important determinant of shipping costs. Improving port efficiency from the 25th to the 75th percentile reduces shipping costs by 12 percent. (Bad ports are equivalent to being 60% farther away from markets for the average country.) Inefficient ports also increase handling costs, which are one of the components of shipping costs. Reductions in country inefficiencies associated to transport costs from the 25th to 75th percentiles imply an increase in bilateral trade of around 25 percent. Finally, we try to explain variations in port efficiency and find that they are linked to excessive regulation, the prevalence of organized crime, and the general condition of the country's infrastructure.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use a newly constructed data set of deposit insurance design features to examine how different design features affect deposit interest rates and market discipline, and find that explicit deposit insurance reduces required deposit interest rate, while at the same time it lowers market discipline on bank risk taking.

BookDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors study the apparent contradiction between two strands of the literature on the effects of financial intermediation on economic activity and find that a positive long-run relationship between financial intermediary and output growth coexists with a mostly negative short run relationship, and further develop an explanation for these contrasting effects by relating them to recent theoretical models.
Abstract: The authors study the apparent contradiction between two strands of the literature on the effects of financial intermediation on economic activity. On the one hand, the empirical growth literature finds a positive effect of financial depth as measured by, for instance, private domestic credit and liquid liabilities (for example, Levine, Loayza, and Beck 2000). On the other hand, the banking and currency crisis literature finds that monetary aggregates, such as domestic credit, are among the best predictors of crises and their related economic downturns (for example, Kaminski and Reinhart 1999). The authors account for these contrasting effects based on the distinction between the short- and long-run impacts of financial intermediation. Working with a panel of cross-country and time-series observations, they estimate an encompassing model of short- and long-run effects using the Pooled Mean Group estimator developed by Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (1999). Their conclusion from this analysis is that a positive long-run relationship between financial intermediation and output growth coexists with a mostly negative short-run relationship. The authors further develop an explanation for these contrasting effects by relating them to recent theoretical models, by linking the estimated short-run effects to measures of financial fragility (namely, banking crises and financial volatility), and by jointly analyzing the effects of financial depth and fragility in classic panel growth regressions.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide a framework outlining farmers demand for information, the public goods character of extensions services, and the organizational and political attributes affecting the performance of extension systems.
Abstract: This article provides a framework outlining farmers demand for information, the public goods character of extensions services, and the organizational and the political attributes affecting the performance of extension systems This conceptual framework is used to analyze several extensions modalities and their likely and actual effectiveness The analysis highlights the efficiency gains that can come from locally decentralized delivery system with incentive structures based on largely private provision, although in poorer countries extension services will remain funded The goals of agricultural extension includes transferring information from the global knowledge base and from local research to farmers, enabling them to clarify their own goals and possibilities, educating them on how to make better decisions, and stimulating desirable agricultural development

Posted Content
David Dollar1, Victoria Levin1
TL;DR: The authors examine the allocation of foreign aid by 41 donor agencies, bilateral and multilateral, and find that the same group of multilateral and bilateral aid agencies that are very policy focused are also very poverty focused.
Abstract: Dollar and Levin examine the allocation of foreign aid by 41 donor agencies, bilateral and multilateral. Their policy selectivity index measures the extent to which a donor's assistance is targeted to countries with sound institutions and policies, controlling for per capita income and population. The poverty selectivity index analogously looks at how well a donor's assistance is targeted to poor countries, controlling for institutional and policy environment as measured by a World Bank index. The authors' main finding is that the same group of multilateral and bilateral aid agencies that are very policy focused are also very poverty focused. The donors that appear high up in both rankings are the World Bank's International Development Association, the International Monetary Fund's Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Norway, Ireland, and the Netherlands. As a robustness check the authors alternatively use institutional quality measures independent of the World Bank and find the same pattern of selectivity. They also find that policy selectivity is a new phenomenon: in the 1984-89 period, aid overall was allocated indiscriminately without any consideration to the quality of governance, whereas in the 1990s there was a clear relationship between aid and governance (institutions and policies). This increasing selectivity of aid is good news for aid effectiveness. The bad news is that the aid agencies that the authors survey vary greatly in size. Some donors that are largest in absolute size, such as France and the United States, are not particularly selective. Japan comes in high on the policy selectivity index but far down on the poverty selectivity index, reflecting its pattern of giving large amounts of aid in Asia to countries that are well governed but in many cases not poor. This paper - a product of Development Policy, Development Economics Senior Vice Presidency - is part of a larger effort in the Bank to examine aid effectiveness.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper reviewed the existing literature on the impact of bank concentration and competition on the performance of banks and summarized the main findings of the summarized papers in this special issue of the JMCB within the context of this actively active literature.
Abstract: The consolidation of banks around the world in recent years is intensifying public policy debates on the influences of concentration and competition on the performance of banks. In light of these developments, this paper first reviews the existing literature on the impact of bank concentration and competition. Second, the paper summarizes the main findings of the papers in this special issue of the JMCB within the context of this active literature. Finally, the paper suggests some directions for future research.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article found that weak protection deters foreign investors in technology-intensive sectors that rely heavily on intellectual property rights, and that a weak intellectual property regime encourages investors to undertake projects focusing on distribution rather than local production.

BookDOI
TL;DR: This article studied the empirical, cross-country relationship between macroeconomic volatility and long-run economic growth and found that the negative effect of volatility on growth has become considerably larger in the past two decades, and that it is mostly due to large recessions rather than normal cyclical fluctuations.
Abstract: The authors study the empirical, cross-country relationship between macroeconomic volatility and long-run economic growth. They address four central questions: 1) Does the volatility-growth link depend on country and policy characteristics, such as the level of development or trade openness? 2) Does this link reflect a statistically and economically significant causal effect from volatility to growth? 3) Has this relationship been stable over time and has it become stronger in recent decades? 4) Does the volatility-growth connection actually reveal the impact of crises rather than the overall effect of cyclical fluctuations? The authors find that macroeconomic volatility, and long-run economic growth are indeed negatively related. This negative link is exacerbated in countries that are poor, institutionally underdeveloped, undergoing intermediate stages of financial development, or unable to conduct counter-cyclical fiscal policies. They find evidence that this negative relationship actually reflects the harmful effect from volatility to growth. Furthermore, the authors find that the negative effect of volatility on growth has become considerably larger in the past two decades, and that it is mostly due to large recessions rather than normal cyclical fluctuations.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For example, this article found that a 10 percentage point increase in the growth of web hosts in a country leads to about a 0.2 percentage points increase in export growth for the average country in their sample.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the determinants of shipping costs to the United States with a large database of more than 300,000 observations per year on shipments of products aggregated at six-digit Harmonized System (HS) level from different ports around the world.

Journal ArticleDOI
Rasmus Heltberg1
TL;DR: The authors discusses the determinants of household fuel use and fuel switching, using comparable household survey data from Brazil, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Nepal, Nicaragua, South Africa, and Vietnam.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, an analytic framework for tracing three waves of efforts to provide key public services in developing countries is provided, and the authors argue that persistent (though not universal) failure has been the product of the imperatives of large bureaucracies to discount decisions that are inherently both discretionary and transaction-intensive (and thus less able to be codified and controlled).

Posted Content
TL;DR: The authors analyzes the impact of donor fragmentation on the quality of government bureaucracy in aid-recipient nations and finds that the number of administrators hired declines as the donor's share of other projects in the country increases, and as the donors' altruism increases.
Abstract: This paper analyzes the impact of donor fragmentation on the quality of government bureaucracy in aid-recipient nations. A formal model of a donor's decision to hire government administrators to manage donor-funded projects predicts that the number of administrators hired declines as the donor's share of other projects in the country increases, and as the donor's altruism (concern for the success of other donors' projects) increases. These hypotheses are supported by cross-country empirical tests using an index of bureaucratic quality available for aid-recipient nations over the 1982-2001 period. Declines in bureaucratic quality are associated with higher donor fragmentation (reflecting the presence of many donors, each with a small share of aid), and with smaller shares of aid coming from multilateral agencies, a proxy for donor altruism. This paper - a product of Public Services, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to identify ways in which donors inadvertently undermine institutional development in aid recipient countries.

BookDOI
TL;DR: Burnside and Dollar as discussed by the authors revisited the relationship between aid and growth using a new data set focusing on the 1990s and found that the impact of aid depends on the quality of state institutions and policies.
Abstract: Burnside and Dollar revisit the relationship between aid and growth using a new data set focusing on the 1990s. The evidence supports the view that the impact of aid depends on the quality of state institutions and policies. The authors use an overall measure of institutions and policies popular in the empirical growth literature. The interaction of aid and institutional quality has a robust positive relationship with growth that is strongest in instrumental variable regressions. There is no support for the competing hypothesis that aid has the same positive effect everywhere. The authors also show that in the 1990s the allocation of aid to low-income countries favored those with better institutional quality. This "selectivity" is sensible if aid in fact is more productive in sound institutional and policy environments. The cross-country evidence on aid effectiveness is supported by other types of information as well: case studies, project-level evidence, and opinion polls support the view that corrupt institutions and weak policies limit the impact of financial assistance for development. This paper - a product of the Development Economics Vice Presidency - is part of a larger effort in the Bank to research aid effectiveness.

Posted Content
TL;DR: This paper reported results from a randomized evaluation of a merit scholarship program for adolescent girls in Kenya, where girls who scored well on academic exams received a cash grant and had school fees paid.
Abstract: We report results from a randomized evaluation of a merit scholarship program for adolescent girls in Kenya. Girls who scored well on academic exams received a cash grant and had school fees paid. Girls eligible for the scholarship showed significant gains in academic exam scores (average gain 0.15 standard deviations). There was considerable sample attrition and no significant program impacts in the smaller of the two program districts, but in the other district girls showed large gains (average gain 0.22-0.27 s.d.), and these gains persisted one full year following the competition. There is also evidence of positive program externalities on.

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the long-run effects of financial intermediation on economic activity and find that a positive long run relationship exists with a negative short-run relationship, and further develop an explanation for these contrasting effects by relating them to recent theoretical models.
Abstract: This paper studies the apparent contradiction between two strands of the literature on the effects of financial intermediation on economic activity. On the one hand, the empirical growth literature finds a positive effect of financial depth as measured by, for instance, private domestic credit and liquid liabilities (e.g., Levine, Loayza, and Beck 2000). On the other hand, the banking and currency crisis literature finds that monetary aggregates, such as domestic credit, are among the best predictors of crises and their related economic downturns (e.g., Kaminski and Reinhart 1999). The paper accounts for these contrasting effects based on the distinction between the short- and long-run impacts of financial intermediation. Working with a panel of cross-country and time-series observations, the paper estimates an encompassing model of short- and long-run effects using the Pooled Mean Group estimator developed by Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (1999). The conclusion from this analysis is that a positive long-run relationship between financial intermediation and output growth co-exists with a, mostly, negative short-run relationship. The paper further develops an explanation for these contrasting effects by relating them to recent theoretical models, by linking the estimated short-run effects to measures of financial fragility (namely, banking crises and financial volatility), and by jointly analyzing the effects of financial depth and fragility in classic panel growth regressions.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the impact of foreign investment in the Polish dairy sector is analyzed. But the authors focus on the impact on small suppliers and show that FDI does not cause a rapid consolidation of the supply base, instead, foreign companies introduce farm assistance programs to overcome market imperfections.