"The authors use a sample of 147 countries to investigate the link between democracy and reforms. Democracy may be conducive to reforms, because politicians have the incentive to embrace growth-enhancing reforms to win elections. By contrast, authoritarian regimes do not have to worry as much...

"The authors use a sample of 133 countries to investigate the link between the abundance of natural resources and micro-economic reforms. Previous studies suggest that natural resource abundance gives rise to governments that are less accountable to the public and states that are oligarchic, and...

This paper estimates the survival time of nearly 7,000 firms in a dozen high-income and middle-income countries in a scenario of extreme economic distress, using the World Bank's Enterprises Surveys. Under the assumption that firms have no incoming revenues and cover only fixed costs, the median...

Using panel data for 189 economies from 2005 to 2013, this paper shows that business-friendly regulations are correlated with the poverty headcount at the country level. This association is significant using the World Bank's Doing Business indicators on getting credit and contract enforcement....

Students around the world are going to school but are not learning -- an emerging gap in human capital formation. To understand this gap, this paper introduces a new data set measuring learning in 164 countries and territories. The data cover 98 percent of the world's population from 2000 to...

Public procurement regulation is an important instrument for using public resources efficiently and ensuring quality services to citizens. On average, the public procurement sector accounts for 14.5 percent of the gross domestic product globally. Using new data, this study documents public...