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Institution

World Bank

OtherWashington D.C., District of Columbia, United States
About: World Bank is a other organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poverty. The organization has 7813 authors who have published 21594 publications receiving 1198361 citations. The organization is also known as: World Bank, WB & The World Bank.


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Journal ArticleDOI
28 Feb 2011-PLOS ONE
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors conducted a secondary analysis of maternal delivery data from Demographic and Health Surveys in 48 developing countries from 2003 to the present and found that most poor women deliver at home.
Abstract: BACKGROUND: In 2008 over 300000 women died during pregnancy or childbirth mostly in poor countries. While there are proven interventions to make childbirth safer there is uncertainty about the best way to deliver these at large scale. In particular there is currently a debate about whether maternal deaths are more likely to be prevented by delivering effective interventions through scaled up facilities or via community-based services. To inform this debate we examined delivery location and attendance and the reasons women report for giving birth at home. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We conducted a secondary analysis of maternal delivery data from Demographic and Health Surveys in 48 developing countries from 2003 to the present. We stratified reported delivery locations by wealth quintile for each country and created weighted regional summaries. For sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where death rates are highest we conducted a subsample analysis of motivations for giving birth at home. In SSA South Asia and Southeast Asia more than 70% of all births in the lowest two wealth quintiles occurred at home. In SSA 54.1% of the richest women reported using public facilities compared with only 17.7% of the poorest women. Among home births in SSA 56% in the poorest quintile were unattended while 41% were attended by a traditional birth attendant (TBA); 40% in the wealthiest quintile were unattended while 33% were attended by a TBA. Seven per cent of the poorest women reported cost as a reason for not delivering in a facility while 27% reported lack of access as a reason. The most common reason given by both the poorest and richest women for not delivering in a facility was that it was deemed "not necessary" by a household decision maker. Among the poorest women "not necessary" was given as a reason by 68% of women whose births were unattended and by 66% of women whose births were attended. CONCLUSIONS: In developing countries most poor women deliver at home. This suggests that at least in the near term efforts to reduce maternal deaths should prioritize community-based interventions aimed at making home births safer.

308 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper investigated the occupational placement of immigrants in the U.S. labor market using census data and found that highly educated immigrants from different countries are more likely to end up in unskilled jobs than immigrants from Asia and industrial countries.

308 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Martin Ravallion1
TL;DR: In the last year or so, markedly different claims have been heard within the development community about just how much progress is being made against poverty and inequality in the current period of "globalization" as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the last year or so, markedly different claims have been heard within the development community about just how much progress is being made against poverty and inequality in the current period of ‘globalization’. This article provides a non-technical overview of the conceptual and methodological issues underlying these conflicting claims. It argues that the dramatically different positions taken in this debate often stem from differences in the concepts and definitions used and differences in data sources and measurement assumptions. These differences are often hidden from view in the debate, but they need to be considered carefully if one is properly to interpret the evidence. The article argues that the best available evidence suggests that, if the rate of progress against absolute poverty in the developing world in the 1990s is maintained, then the Millennium Development Goal of halving the 1990 aggregate poverty rate by 2015 will be achieved on time in the aggregate, though not in all regions. The article concludes with some observations on the implications for policy-oriented debates on globalization and pro-poor growth.

308 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Harry G. Broadman1
TL;DR: The authors empirically analyzed the geographic determinants of FDI in China and found that FDI's geographical distribution in China is determined mostly by GNP, infrastructure development, level of general education, and coastal location.
Abstract: Foreign direct investment (FDI) has played a major role in China's push toward a market-oriented economy. Recent inflows account for 40 percent of combined flows of FDI to all developing countries, making China the biggest developing country FDI recipient. This record is impressive, but certain problems must be overcome if FDI is to continue to help sustain the country's record growth rate and further its economic development. For one thing, FDI in China is highly concentrated geographically, and its sector distribution is highly uneven. The authors empirically analyze the geographic determinants of FDI in China. They find that FDI's geographical distribution in China is determined mostly by GNP, infrastructure development, level of general education, and coastal location. Although the sectoral distribution of FDI is coming into line with the rest of the world, in the past, FDI has been biased toward speculative types of investment, especially in the real estate sector.

308 citations

Posted Content
Stuti Khemani1
TL;DR: Khemani et al. as mentioned in this paper studied the effect of state legislative assembly elections on the policies of state governments in 14 major states of India, from 1960 to 1994, and found that elections have a negative effect on some commodity taxes, a positive effect on investment spending, but no effect on deficits.
Abstract: Empirical results from India suggest that politicians exert greater effort in managing public works during election years. Surprisingly, there is no evidence of a populist spending spree to sway voters just before elections. Khemani studies the effect of state legislative assembly elections on the policies of state governments in 14 major states of India, from 1960 to 1994. She identifies the effect of the timing of elections using an instrument for the electoral cycle that distinguishes between constitutionally scheduled elections and midterm polls. She contrasts two levers of policy manipulation-fiscal policy and public service delivery-to distinguish between alternative models of political cycles. The predictions of three models are tested: - Populist cycles to woo uninformed and myopic voters. - Signaling models with asymmetric information. - A moral hazard model with high discounting by political agents. The empirical results for fiscal policy show that election years have a negative effect on some commodity taxes, a positive effect on investment spending, but no effect on deficits, primarily because consumption spending is reduced. With regard to public service delivery, elections have a positive and large effect on road construction by state public works departments. Strikingly, the fiscal effects are much smaller than the effect on roads. Khemani argues that the pattern of evidence is inconsistent with the predictions of models of voter myopia and asymmetric information. She explores an alternative moral hazard model in which the cycle is generated by high political discounting and career concerns persuade politicans to exert greater effort in election years on the management of public works. This paper - a product of Public Economics, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to understand the effect of political institutions on public policy. The author may be contacted at skhemani@worldbank.org.

308 citations


Authors

Showing all 7881 results

NameH-indexPapersCitations
Joseph E. Stiglitz1641142152469
Barry M. Popkin15775190453
Dan J. Stein1421727132718
Asli Demirguc-Kunt13742978166
Elinor Ostrom126430104959
David Scott124156182554
Ross Levine122398108067
Barry Eichengreen11694951073
Martin Ravallion11557055380
Kenneth H. Mayer115135164698
Angus Deaton11036366325
Timothy Besley10336845988
Lawrence H. Summers10228558555
Shang-Jin Wei10141539112
Thorsten Beck9937362708
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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers from the Institution in previous years
YearPapers
202330
202281
2021491
2020594
2019604
2018637