A number of recent studies have empirically documented links between characteristics of World Bank projects and their ultimate outcomes as evaluated by the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group. This paper explores the in-sample and out-of-sample predictive performance of empirical models...

An asset and liability management framework for managing risks arising from sovereign foreign exchange obligations requires a joint analysis of (i) the external financial liabilities resulting from a country's sovereign debt and (ii) the foreign exchange assets of its central bank. Governments...

Traditional risk assessments use asset losses as the main metric to measure the severity of a disaster. This paper proposes an expanded risk assessment based on a framework that adds socioeconomic resilience and uses wellbeing losses as its main measure of disaster severity. Using a new,...

This paper proposes a framework for ex ante evaluation of sovereign disaster risk finance instruments available to governments for funding disaster losses. The framework can be used by governments to help choose between different financial instruments, or between different combinations of...

This paper studies how the sensitivity of consumption to income has changed over time as the degree of financial integration has risen. In standard theory, greater financial integration facilitates international borrowing and lending, helping to reduce the sensitivity of consumption growth to...

Climate change will exacerbate the challenges associated with environmental conditions, especially weather variability and extremes, in developing countries. These challenges play important, if as yet poorly understood roles in the development prospects of affected regions. As such, climate...

This paper discusses how catastrophe crop risk models can be used to assess food security needs at the sovereign level for the purpose of risk transfer. The rationale for a system to evaluate food security needs at the national level is discussed. The role of technology and remote sensing data...

Catastrophe risk models are quantitative models used to estimate probabilistic loss distributions for a specified range of assets subject to a baseline level of disaster risk. While cat risk models are used extensively by the insurance and reinsurance industry to estimate expected losses to...

Defined contribution pension systems have faced criticism in the wake of the financial and economic crisis for not delivering adequate and sustainable pension incomes at retirement. Much of the problem has centered around the misalignment of pension fund management companies and the interests of...

Which cities have the highest risk of human and economic losses due to natural hazards? And how will urban exposure to major hazards change over the coming decades? This paper develops a global urban disaster risk index that evaluates the mortality and economic risks from disasters in 1,943...