Education, Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth

Educational attainment has a positive impact on economic growth and poverty reduction. The microeconomic literature has also established a clear relationship between educational attainment and individual income. Educational attainment is positively linked with technological adaptation, innovation, and increased productivity, generating positive spin-off and growth effects for the economy. Non-economic factors also posit a positive role [...]

Debt Relief and Low-Income Countries

External debt began to be a problem for developing countries in the 1980s.  Middle-income countries were borrowing from private creditors, chiefly commercial banks, while low-income countries without access to private finance borrowed either directly from other governments or from their export credit agencies (ECAs) or through private loans insured for payment by ECAs. Official creditors [...]

Employment and Shared Growth Website Launch

Our colleagues from the World Bank’s Poverty Reduction Group have recently launched the new Employment and Shared Growth web-site. In their own words: This website is designed to help fill the gap between the awareness of the importance of employment and labor market mobility as engines of development and poverty reduction, and the attention this issue receives in [...]

Essay competitions

Two different essay competitions have been recently launched. $5,000 and $1,000 prizes up for grabs. The World Bank and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2007 essay competition. How does corruption affect your life? What can you do to fight the corruption that you face? Deadline is March 15. More information and instructions to apply [...]

Goodbye Washington Consensus …

Hello Washington Confusion? In case you missed before, that is the title of a paper by Dani Rodrik now published in the JEL, where he discusses (often praising) the World Bank’s Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform, a study on development lessons of the 1990s. The World Bank’s Economic Growth in the [...]

Why isn’t financial deepening happening in the poor countries?

While global financial integration has been progressing well, financial deepening is not.  Only a handful of emerging market economies are benefiting from large capital inflows in the form of FDI.   In countries like Kenya where the capital account is open and foreign bank entry has long been allowed, capital market remains shallow and real interest [...]

External Indebtedness, Growth and Poverty: Empirical Studies

Notwithstanding the attractiveness of the debt overhang hypothesis as an explanation for the high debt-low growth nexus, empirical evidence of the effects of debt overhang has been mixed. For example, Claessens found that five of the 29 middle-income countries in his sample were on the wrong side of the Laffer debt curve, suggesting that partial [...]

World Day to Overcome Extreme Poverty

Did you know that October 17th is the World Day to Overcome Extreme Poverty, officially recognised by the United Nations in 1992? Yes, the next one is still far away but you can already support this initiative signing the call to action. Article Source: World Bank Poverty and Growth Program Blog

Gender, Economic Development and Poverty Reduction: E-learning course

The Poverty and Growth Program of the World Bank Institute is offering an Internet course on Gender, Economic Development and Poverty Reduction, which will take place from 4 – 30 March, 2007.   The course will explore the concepts of gender and gender inequality, the relationship between gender inequality and poverty, and discuss the importance of gender [...]

External Indebtedness, Growth and Poverty

Studies investigating the link between external debt and growth place a strong emphasis on the role of investment. In effect, large debt stocks are expected to lower growth by hindering investment (debt overhang hypothesis). Under this channel, outstanding debt ultimately becomes so large that investment will remain inefficiently low without sizable debt or debt service [...]