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.

It's Not Factor Accumulation : Stylized Facts and Growth Models

Abstract: We document five stylized facts of economic growth. (1) The "residual" rather than factor accumulation accounts for most of the income and growth differences across nations. (2) Income diverges over the long run. (3) Factor accumulation is persistent while growth is not persistent and the growth path of countries exhibits remarkable variation across countries. (4) Economic activity is highly concentrated, with all factors of production flowing to the richest areas. (5) National policies closely associated with long-run economic growth rates. We argue that these facts do not support models with diminishing returns, constant returns to scale, some fixed factor of production, and that highlight the role of factor accumulation. Empirical work, however, does not yet decisively distinguish among the different theoretical conceptions of "total factor productivity growth." Economists should devote more effort towards modeling and quantifying total factor productivity.

The Developing World is Poorer than We Thought, But No Less Successful in the Fight Against Poverty

Abstract: A new data set on national poverty lines is combined with new price data and almost 700 household surveys to estimate absolute poverty measures for the developing world We find that 25% of the population lived in poverty in 2005, as judged by what “poverty” typically means in the world's poorest countries This is higher than past estimates Substantial overall progress is still indicated—the corresponding poverty rate was 52% in 1981—but progress was very uneven across regions The trends over time and regional profile are robust to various changes in methodology, though precise counts are more sensitive

Cents and Sociability: Household Income and Social Capital in Rural Tanzania

Abstract: Matching a measure of social capital with data on household income in certain rural villages in Tanzania shows that social capital is indeed both capital (in that it raises incomes) and social (in that household incomes depend on village, not just household, social capital). Narayan and Pritchett construct a measure of social capital in rural Tanzania, using data from the Tanzania Social Capital and Poverty Survey (SCPS), a large-scale survey that asked individuals about the extent and characteristics of their associational activity and their trust in various institutions and individuals. They match this measure of social capital with data on household income in the same villages (both from the SCPS and from an earlier household survey, the Human Resources Development Survey). In doing so, they show that social capital is indeed both capital (in that it raises incomes) and social (in that household incomes depend on village, not just household, social capital). The magnitude of social capital's effect on incomes is impressive: a one standard deviation increase in village social capital increases a household proxy for income by at least 20 to 30 percent. This is as great an impact as an equivalent increase in nonfarming assets, or a tripling of the level of education. Data from the two surveys make it possible to identify some of the proximate channels through which social capital affects incomes: better publicly provided services, more community activity, greater use of modern agricultural inputs, and greater use of credit in agriculture. This paper - a joint product of Social Development, and Poverty and Human Resources, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the Bank to understand the social determinants of sustainable development.

Governance matters VII: aggregate and individual governance indicators 1996-2007

Abstract: This paper reports on the latest update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2007: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption. The latest aggregate indicators are based on hundreds of specific and disaggregated individual variables measuring various dimensions of governance, taken from 35 data sources provided by 32 different organizations. The data reflect the views on governance of public sector, private sector and NGO experts, as well as thousands of citizen and firm survey respondents worldwide. The authors also explicitly report the margins of error accompanying each country estimate. These reflect the inherent difficulties in measuring governance using any kind of data. The authors also briefly describe the evolution of the WGI since its inception, and show that the margins of error on the aggregate governance indicators have declined over the years, even though they still remain non-trivial. The authors find that even after taking margins of error into account, the WGI permit meaningful cross-country comparisons as well as monitoring progress over time. In less than a decade, a substantial number of countries exhibit statistically significant improvements in at least one dimension of governance, while other countries exhibit deterioration in some dimensions. These aggregate indicators, spanning more than a decade, together with the disaggregated individual indicators, are available at www.govindicators.org.