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.

the middle class consensus and economic development

Abstract: A middle class consensus is defined as a high share of income for the middle class and a low degree of ethnic divisons. The paper links a middle class consensus to resource endowments, along the lines of the provocative thesis of Engerman and Sokoloff (1997 and 2000). This paper exploits this association using tropical resource endowments as instruments for inequality. A higher share of income for the middle class and lower ethnic divisions are associated with higher income and higher growth, as well as with more education, better health, better infrastructure, better economic policies, less political instability, less civil war and ethnic minorities at risk, more social “modernization” and more democracy.

Tenure Security and Land-Related Investment: Evidence from Ethiopia

Abstract: The authors use a large data set from Ethiopia that differentiates tenure security and transferability to explore determinants of different types of land-related investment and its possible impact on productivity. While they find some support for endogeneity of investment in trees, this is not the case for terraces. Transfer rights are unambiguously investment-enhancing. The large productivity effect of terracing implies that, even where households undertake investments to increase their tenure security, this may not be socially efficient. In Ethiopia, government action to increase tenure security and transferability of land rights can significantly enhance rural investment and productivity. This paper - a product of Rural Development, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to assess the impact of land policy on equity and productive development.

Prices or knowledge? What drives demand for financial services in emerging markets?

Abstract: This brief summarizes the results of a gender impact evaluation study, entitled Prices or knowledge? What drives demand for financial services in emerging markets? Conducted in 2008 in Indonesia. The study observed that financial development is critical for growth, but its micro determinants are not well understood. Financial literacy training has no impact on the probability of opening a bank account, although it does have an impact among those with low levels of education and financial literacy. A change from $3 to $14 led to a 7.6 percent increase in the probability of owning a bank account. The results hold two years after a study. Funding for the study derived from World Bank, HBS Division of Research and Faculty Development.

Barriers to Household Risk Management: Evidence from India

Abstract: Why do many households remain exposed to large exogenous sources of non-systematic income risk? This paper uses a series of randomized field experiments in rural India to test the importance of price and non-price factors in the adoption of an innovative rainfall insurance product. The analysis finds that demand is significantly price-elastic, but that even if insurance were offered with payout ratios similar to US, widespread coverage would not be achieved. The paper identifies key non-price frictions that limit demand: liquidity constraints, particularly among poor households, lack of trust, and limited salience. The authors suggest potential improvements in contract design to mitigate these frictions.

Geographic poverty traps? A micro model of consumption growth in rural China

Abstract: How important are neighbourhood endowments of physical and human capital in explaining diverging fortunes over time for otherwise identical households in a developing rural economy? To answer this question we develop an estimable micro model of consumption growth allowing for constraints on factor mobility and externalities, whereby geographic capital can influence the productivity of a household's own capital. Our statistical test has considerable power in detecting geographic effects given that we control for latent heterogeneity in measured consumption growth rates at the micro level. We find robust evidence of geographic poverty traps in farm-household panel data from post-reform rural China. Our results strengthen the equity and efficiency case for public investment in lagging poor areas in this setting. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.