With increasing assistance from the World Bank and other donors, microfinance is emerging as an instrument for reducing poverty and improving the poor's access to financial services in low-income countries. Providing the poor with access to financial services is one of many ways to help increase their incomes and productivity. In many countries, however, traditional financial institutions have failed to provide this service. Microcredit and cooperative programs fill this gap. They provide credit through social mechanisms such as group-based lending to reach the poor and other clients,...
With increasing assistance from the World Bank and other donors, microfinance is emerging as an instrument for reducing poverty and improving the poor...
'Given the remarkable increase in regional integration agreements RIAs] in the past decade, understanding of their economic rationale and consequences is essential. Schiff and Winters succeed admirably in covering the conceptual, empirical, and policy issues arising from RIAs in an informed, comprehensible, and accessible manner. Their book should be required reading for policy analysts, academics, and students concerned with evaluation of RIA initiatives.' -- Robert M. Stern, Department of Economics and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan 'Regional Integration and...
'Given the remarkable increase in regional integration agreements RIAs] in the past decade, understanding of their economic rationale and consequence...
An important new annual publication from the World Bank, 'Doing Business in 2004' provides both qualitative and quantitative information on the business climate in over 130 countries. 'Doing Business' constructs a new set of indicators on the regulatory environment for private sector development and provides a collection of informative case studies of real-life experiences. 'Doing Business in 2004' covers the fundamental aspects of a business life cycle, from starting a business to bankruptcy. Topics include access to credit, bankruptcy, entry regulations, contract enforcement, and labor...
An important new annual publication from the World Bank, 'Doing Business in 2004' provides both qualitative and quantitative information on the busine...
The salience of East Asia in the global economy is now unquestionable, and with a population of nearly 1.9 billion, its expanding markets will strongly influence the tempo of international trade and the growth of global incomes. However, while the potential of East Asian economies has been amply demonstrated, their future performance is by no means assured. The crisis of 1997, the uneven recovery, the intensifying trade competition, and the rapidity of technological change, call for initiatives by governments and by firms on several fronts. East Asia needs to sustain its hard-earned stability...
The salience of East Asia in the global economy is now unquestionable, and with a population of nearly 1.9 billion, its expanding markets will strongl...
The Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) brings together the world's finest development thinkers to present their perspectives and ideas. In recent years, a parallel, second conference has been held in Europe with the same goal of expanding the flow of ideas between thinkers, practitioners, and policymakers in the field of international development. ABCDE Europe 2003 presents selected papers from the fourth annual ABCDE Europe meetings, held June 24-26, 2002, in Oslo, Norway. Hosted by the World Bank and the Chr. Michelsen Institute, more than 350 eminent scholars and...
The Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) brings together the world's finest development thinkers to present their perspective...
The WTO is today dealing with an issue that lies at the interface of two major challenges the world faces, trade liberalization and international migration. Greater freedom for the 'temporary movement of individual service suppliers' is being negotiated under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Conditions in many developed economies--ranging from aging populations to shortages of skilled labor--suggest that this may be a propitious time to put labor mobility squarely on the negotiating agenda. Yet there is limited awareness of how the GATS mechanism can be used to foster...
The WTO is today dealing with an issue that lies at the interface of two major challenges the world faces, trade liberalization and international migr...
Trade in services, far more than trade in goods, is affected by a variety of domestic regulations, ranging from qualification and licensing requirements in professional services to pro-competitive regulation in telecommunications services. Experience shows that the quality of regulation strongly influences the consequences of trade liberalization. WTO members have agreed that a central task in the ongoing services negotiations will be to develop a set of rules to ensure that domestic regulations support rather than impede trade liberalization. Since these rules are bound to have a profound...
Trade in services, far more than trade in goods, is affected by a variety of domestic regulations, ranging from qualification and licensing requiremen...
First in a group of three volumes resulting from a global consultation and research effort. multi-country research initiative to understand poverty from the eyes of the poor, the 'Voices of the Poor' project was undertaken to inform the World Bank's activities and the 'World Development Report 2000/2001'. 'Voices of the Poor' marks the first time such an exercise has been undertaken in so many developing countries and transition economies around the world. -- Volume 1, 'Can Anyone Hear Us?' gathers the voices of over 40,000 poor women and men in 50 countries from the World Bank's...
First in a group of three volumes resulting from a global consultation and research effort. multi-country research initiative to understand poverty fr...
