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.

Governance and Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract: Real income per head in much of sub-Saharan Africa grew rapidly in the 1960s, but faltered following the first OPEC oil price shock in 1973-74, and then stagnated or fell from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Africa also saw a broad wave of authoritarian rule sweep the continent in the 1960s and early 1970s. Since 1990, however, the African political landscape has experienced significant changes, many in the direction of greater pluralism and democracy. Moreover, where civil strife has been avoided, Africa has seen a broad tendency towards rapid growth for several years after 1995. This sequence of events suggests that political economy may offer useful perspectives on Africa's growth record over the last several decades. We begin with a summary of Africa's growth patterns and the evolution of African political regimes. We then examine models of authoritarian rule for insights into the conditions under which elites may sacrifice the general interest to extract rents and retain power, or in which leaders may find ways of making growth-enhancing policy politically acceptable. It would be premature to conclude that Africa's political reforms of the 1990s have helped to generate economic progress. However, we do believe that the increase in political pluralism, in combination with greater unity among African aid donors, bodes well for a continuation of Africa's growth recovery.

Redistributing income to the poor and the rich : public transfers in Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract: Recognizing that redistribution is only one of many roles for social policy, the findings of this report reinforce the recommendations commonly made in the literature on social protection in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) - arming them with additional evidence on redistributive impacts including: Reducing pension deficits - and rethinking some highly regressive social insurance programs - must be a top priority on the policy agendas in LAC. These findings are consistent with recommendations for social insurance from other World Bank publications, emphasizing: (a) the need to reduce regressive net subsidies for pensions by promoting fully-funded pension plans for those who can afford it and (b) reserving subsidized pensions for the poor and moving away from the restriction of such benefits tied to formal sector employment. Improving the targeting of social assistance transfers is also a priority in many cases - at least as a short-term measure, short of a more sweeping overhaul of social policy. As noted above, many social assistance transfers are regressive, despite explicit objectives to assist the poor. Yet this study - and others8 - clearly shows that better targeting is feasible. The targeting mechanisms used by conditional cash transfers, for example, could be adopted by other social assistance programs. In cases where social assistance programs are well-targeted and otherwise effective, countries might also consider the possibility of increasing unit subsidies for better redistributive and poverty impacts - perhaps with eventual savings from further reforms to reduce pension deficits. Yet this raises the issue of potential adverse incentive effects. Although evidence of strong labor disincentives is absent for these programs in LAC, and certain design features would plausibly discourage such effects, policy makers in LAC should more explicitly incorporate design features to reduce potential work disincentives - and researchers should further investigate this potential. Moreover, any potential increase in unit transfers should be weighed against other development priorities. But targeting and design improvements to individual social assistance programs are not enough. An adequate mix of instruments is needed to weave a social safety net that (a) promotes other roles of social policy (promotion of human capital, smoothing consumption, and ensuring adequate protection against shocks, in addition to redistribution); and (b) covers a variety of circumstances, including programs tailored to the needs of specific vulnerable groups.

Land Registration, Governance, and Development: Evidence and Implications for Policy

Abstract: The developmental impact of institutions to establish and maintain secure property rights to land has been a subject of much debate. The authors review the literature on the impact of land administration interventions in specific contexts, highlighting the dependence of outcomes on the governance environment, the effectiveness of the state apparatus, and the distribution of socio-economic power. There is evidence, albeit not uniform, of enhancement of tenure security through land registration with benefits manifesting themselves in higher levels of investment and productivity and a reduced need to defend land rights. Land registration has also been shown to increase activity in land rental markets, leading to higher efficiency overall. Evidence of improved access to credit, due to formalization of land rights, is scant. Even in situations where land registration had positive benefits, the literature contains little rigorous analysis of cost-effectiveness and long-term sustainability of impacts. The authors conclude that formalization of land rights should not be viewed as a panacea and that interventions should be decided only after a careful diagnosis of the policy, social, and governance environment. If intervention is justified, the performance of land administration systems needs to be benchmarked in terms of coverage, cost-effectiveness, and quality of service provision.

The Determinants of Gender Equity in India: Examining Dyson and Moore's Thesis with New Data

Abstract: In revisiting the influential Dyson and Moore (1983) hypothesis as to why women in South India enjoy relatively more agency than in the North, we conducted an econometric analysis of the determinants of women's mobility and decisionmaking authority. Data for the study come from a household data survey carried out in the Northern state of Uttar Pradesh and in the Southern state of Karnataka in 1995. We find that cross-cousin and uncle-niece marriage is more prevalent in Karnataka as expected. Contrary to Dyson and Moore, however, by 1995 a majority of communities in both North and South practiced village exogamy, and dowries in the two regions were of similar size. Reduced-form, multivariate regressions show that cultural factors affect women's autonomy in ways not earlier predicted. The impact of village exogamy is mixed rather than negative, while that of consanguinity is strongly negative rather than positive as Dyson and Moore surmised. These authors correctly identified the negative effect purdah has on female mobility. Consistent with economic theory, our data show that higher wages for women consistently improve their mobility and authority, while higher male wages decrease them. Improvements in infrastructure–particularly the presence of street lights and schools in the village–are associated with increased women's agency. We conclude, therefore, that economic factors, state action, and restrictions on mobility seem more powerful than kinship structures as explanations of differences in female autonomy between North and South India.

Decomposing World Income distribution : DoesThe World Have A Middle Class?

Abstract: Using the national income/expenditure distribution data from 119 countries, the paper decomposes total income inequality between the individuals in the world, by continents and regions. We use Yitzhaki's Gini decomposition which allows for an exact breakdown (without a residual term) of the overall Gini by recipients. We find that Asia is by far the most heterogeneous continent; between-country inequality there is more important than inequality in incomes within-countries. Africa, Latin America, and Western Europe/North America are quite homogeneous continents with small differences between the countries (so that most of their inequality is explained by within-country inequality). If we divide the world into three groups: the rich G7 (and its equivalents), the less developed countries (all those with income per capita less than, or equal to, Brazil's), and the middle-income countries (all those with income level between Brazil and Italy), we find that there is very little overlap between such groupings, i.e. very few people from the LDCs have incomes which are in the range of the rich countries.