World Bank

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.

Political Cycles in a Developing Economy: Effect of Elections in Indian States

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.

Bringing the Tiger Back from the Brink—The Six Percent Solution

Abstract: The Tiger Summit, to be hosted by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Russia in November 2010—the Chinese Year of the Tiger and the International Year of Biodiversity—promises to be the most significant meeting ever held to discuss the fate of a single non-human species. The Summit will culminate efforts by the Global Tiger Initiative (GTI), launched in 2008 by Robert Zoellick, World Bank President. Leaders of 13 tiger range states, supported by international donors and conservationists attending the summit, are being asked to commit to substantive measures to prevent the unthinkable: extinction of the world's last wild tiger populations. Wild tiger numbers are at an historic low. There is no evidence of breeding populations of tigers in Cambodia, China, Vietnam, and DPR Korea. Current approaches to tiger conservation are not slowing the decline in tiger numbers [1]–[3], which has continued unabated over the last two decades. While the scale of the challenge is enormous, we submit that the complexity of effective implementation is not: commitments should shift to focus on protecting tigers at spatially well-defined priority sites, supported by proven best practices of law enforcement, wildlife management, and scientific monitoring. Conflict with local people needs to be mitigated. We argue that such a shift in emphasis would reverse the decline of wild tigers and do so in a rapid and cost-efficient manner.

Pollution Havens and Foreign Direct Investment: Dirty Secret or Popular Myth?

Abstract: The pollution haven hypothesis refers to the possibility that multinational firms, particularly those engaged in highly polluting activities, relocate to countries with weaker environmental standards. Despite the plausibility and popularity of this hypothesis, the existing literature has found only limited evidence to support it. To enhance our ability to detect the possible dirty secret, this study makes improvements in four areas. First, we focus on investment flows from multiple countries to 25 economies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Transition countries are a suitable region for studying this question, as they offer a large variation in terms of environmental standards. Second, we take into explicit account the effect of host country corruption. Third, we include information on both the polluting-intensity of the potential investor and the environmental stringency in the potential host country, which allows us to test whether dirty industries are relatively more attracted to locations with weak standards. And fourth, we rely on firm-level rather than industry-level data. Despite these improvements, we find no support for the pollution haven hypothesis. If anything, firms in less polluting industries are more likely to invest in the region. We find no systematic evidence that FDI from dirtier industries is more likely to go to countries with weak environmental regulations.

Financial literacy around the world : an overview of the evidence with practical suggestions for the way forward

Abstract: Financial literacy programs are fast becoming a key ingredient in financial policy reform worldwide. Yet, what is financial literacy exactly and what do we know of its effectiveness? This paper collects insights from the literature thus far and summarizes global evidence on financial literacy, its correlates, and existing and upcoming causal investigations. The authors conclude with a synthesis of policy advice and practical suggestions for the way forward in this fast growing area of research.