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.

Community-Based and -Driven Development: A Critical Review

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.

Enterprise Restructuring in Transition: A Quantitative Survey

Abstract: We survey the empirical literature analyzing the process of enterprise restructuring in transition economies. The survey provides new insights into the relative effectiveness of different reform policies, and into how this effectiveness varies across regions. We study the effects of privatization, the importance of different types of owners, the effects of foreign and domestic competition, the consequences of soft budgets, and the role of managerial incentives and managerial human capital, with regard to enterprise restructuring.

Institutions, Financial Markets and Firm Debt Maturity

Abstract: Do firms in developing countries use less long term debt than similar firms in industrial countries? This paper investigates the role of institutional factors in explaining firms' choice of debt maturity in a sample of 30 countries during 1980-91. Demirguc-Kunt and Maksimovic examine the maturity of firm debt in 30 countries during the period 1980-91. They find systematic differences in the use of long-term debt between industrial and developing countries and between small and large firms. In industrial countries, firms have more long-term debt and a greater proportion of their total debt is held as long-term debt. Large firms have more long-term debt, as a proportion of total assets and debt, than smaller firms do. The authors try to explain the variations in debt composition by differences in the effectiveness of legal systems, the development of stock markets and the banking sector, the level of government subsidies, and firm characteristics. In countries with an effective legal system, both large and small firms have more long-term debt relative to assets and their debt is of longer maturity. Both large and small firms in countries with a tradition of common law use less long-term debt, relative to their assets, than do firms in countries with a tradition of civil law. Large firms in common law countries also use less short-term debt. In countries with active stock markets, large firms have more long-term debt and debt of longer maturity. Neither the level of activity nor the size of the market is correlated with financing choices of small firms. By contrast, in countries with large banking sectors, small firms have less short-term debt and their debt is of longer maturity. Variation in the size of the banking sector does not have a corresponding correlation with the capital structures of large firms. Government subsidies to industry increase long-term debt levels of both small and large firms. For all firms, inflation is associated with less use of long-term debt. The authors also find evidence of maturity-matching for both large and small firms. This paper - a product of the Finance and Private Sector Development Division, Policy Research Department - is part of a larger effort in the department to understand the impact of institutional constraints on firms' financing choices. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under the research project Term Finance: Theory and Evidence (RPO 679-62).

Islamic vs. conventional banking: Business model, efficiency and stability

Abstract: This paper discusses Islamic banking products and interprets them in the context of financial intermediation theory. Anecdotal evidence shows that many of the conventional products can be redrafted as Sharia-compliant products, so that the differences are smaller than expected. Comparing conventional and Islamic banks and controlling for other bank and country characteristics, the authors find few significant differences in business orientation, efficiency, asset quality, or stability. While Islamic banks seem more cost-effective than conventional banks in a broad cross-country sample, this finding reverses in a sample of countries with both Islamic and conventional banks. However, conventional banks that operate in countries with a higher market share of Islamic banks are more cost-effective but less stable. There is also consistent evidence of higher capitalization of Islamic banks and this capital cushion plus higher liquidity reserves explains the relatively better performance of Islamic banks during the recent crisis.