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.

Access to Markets and the Benefits of Rural Roads

Abstract: Improving road access to agricultural markets in Nepal would confer substantial economic benefits on average, much of them going to poor households. But rural road construction is more like a tide that lifts all boats than a highly effective means of reducing income inequality. Transport infrastructure plays a central role in rural development, yet little is known about the size - or, especially, the distribution - of benefits from road investments. Among other benefits, rural roads provide cheaper access to both markets for agricultural output and for modern inputs. Jacoby develops and implements a method for nonparametrically estimating the benefits from road projects at the household level. The idea is that since these benefits get capitalized in land values, they can be estimated by examining how the value of farmland falls with distance from agricultural markets. Household-level benefits from hypothetical road projects are calculated from the predicted appreciation in value of the household's farmland. These predicted benefits are then related to household per-capita expenditures to assess their distributional consequences. The empirical analysis, using data from Nepal, shows large benefits from extending roads into remote rural areas, much of these gains going to poorer households. But rural road construction is not the magic bullet for poverty alleviation. The benefits are neither large enough nor targeted well enough to reduce income inequality appreciably. This paper - a product of Rural Development, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to study the impact of rural roads and other forms of infrastructure on household welfare and economic growth. The author may be contacted at hjacoby@worldbank.org.

How infrastructure and financial institutions affect agricultural output and investment in India

Abstract: This paper has sought to quantify the inter-relationships among the investment decisions of government, financial institutions and farmers and their joint effects on agricultural investment and output. Empirical results using district-level time-series data from India confirm the importance of input and output prices in the determination of aggregate crop output, but also confirm that aggregate outout supply elasticities are low. Education infrastructure availability and the rural banks play an overwhelming role in determining investment, input and output decisions. Availability of banks is a more important determinant of fertilizer demand and aggregate crop output than interest rates. While farmers respond to infrastructure, the governments in turn allocate their infrastructure investments in response to the agroclimatic potential of the districts and banks locate their branches where the agroclimate and the infrastructure are favorable to their operation. Agricultural output is therefore determined in a complex interactive process where farmers, government and intermediaries respond to the same factors. This sharply affects the econometric techniques which have to be used to analyze output supply.

A new scenario framework for climate change research: Scenario matrix architecture

Abstract: This paper describes the scenario matrix architecture that underlies a framework for developing new scenarios for climate change research. The matrix architecture facilitates addressing key questions related to current climate research and policy-making: identifying the effectiveness of different adaptation and mitigation strategies (in terms of their costs, risks and other consequences) and the possible trade-offs and synergies. The two main axes of the matrix are: 1) the level of radiative forcing of the climate system (as characterised by the representative concentration pathways) and 2) a set of alternative plausible trajectories of future global development (described as shared socio-economic pathways). The matrix can be used to guide scenario development at different scales. It can also be used as a heuristic tool for classifying new and existing scenarios for assessment. Key elements of the architecture, in particular the shared socio-economic pathways and shared policy assumptions (devices for incorporating explicit mitigation and adaptation policies), are elaborated in other papers in this special issue.

Comparative analysis of firm demographics and survival: evidence from micro-level sources in OECD countries

Abstract: In this paper, we present cross-country evidence on firm size distribution, firm demographic and post-entry performance for 10 OECD countries. We use harmonized firm-level data drawn from business registers or social security records. These data enable international comparisons and the identification of idiosyncratic country effects. While average firm size differs across countries, due to both sectoral specialization and within-sector characteristics, we find similar degrees of firm churning across countries. In most of them, about 20% of firms enter and exit most markets every year; and about 20–40% of entering firms fail within the first 2 years of life. However, post-entry growth of successful entrants is much higher in the USA than in Europe, which may be indicative of barriers to firm growth as opposed to barriers to entry.