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.

Implications of Higher Global Food Prices for Poverty in Low-Income Countries

Abstract: In many poor countries, the recent increases in prices of staple foods raise the real incomes of those selling food, many of whom are relatively poor, while hurting net food consumers, many of whom are also relatively poor. The impacts on poverty will certainly be very diverse, but the average impact on poverty depends upon the balance between these two effects, and can only be determined by looking at real-world data. Results using household data for ten observations on nine low-income countries show that the short-run impacts of higher staple food prices on poverty differ considerably by commodity and by country, but, that poverty increases are much more frequent, and larger, than poverty reductions. The recent large increases in food prices appear likely to raise overall poverty in low income countries substantially.

Bank competition and financial stability

Abstract: Under the traditional “competition-fragility” view, more bank competition erodes market power, decreases profit margins, and results in reduced franchise value that encourages bank risk taking. Under the alternative “competition-stability” view, more market power in the loan market may result in higher bank risk as the higher interest rates charged to loan customers make it harder to repay loans, and exacerbate moral hazard and adverse selection problems. The two strands of the literature need not necessarily yield opposing predictions regarding the effects of competition and market power on stability in banking. Even if market power in the loan market results in riskier loan portfolios, the overall risks of banks need not increase if banks protect their franchise values by increasing their equity capital or engaging in other risk-mitigating techniques. We test these theories by regressing measures of loan risk, bank risk, and bank equity capital on several measures of market power, as well as indicators of the business environment, using data for 8,235 banks in 23 developed nations. Our results suggest that—consistent with the traditional “competition-fragility” view—banks with a higher degree of market power also have less overall risk exposure. The data also provides some support for one element of the “competition-stability” view—that market power increases loan portfolio risk. We show that this risk may be offset in part by higher equity capital ratios.

The Varieties of Resource Experience: Natural Resource Export Structures and the Political Economy of Economic Growth

Abstract: Many oil, mineral, and plantation crop-based economies experienced a substantial deceleration in growth following the commodity boom and bust of the 1970s and early 1980s. This article illustrates how countries dependent on point source natural resources (those extracted from a narrow geographic or economic base, such as oil and minerals) and plantation crops are predisposed to heightened economic and social divisions and weakened institutional capacity. This in turn impedes their ability to respond effectively to shocks, which previous studies have shown to be essential for sustaining rising levels of prosperity. Analysis of data on classifications of export structure, controlling for a wide array of other potential determinants of governance, shows that point source and coffee and cocoa exporting countries do relatively poorly across an array of governance indicators. These governance effects are not associated simply with being a natural resource exporter. Countries with natural resource exports that are diffuse relying primarily on livestock and agricultural produce from small family farms do not show the same strong effects and have had more robust growth recoveries.