This report presents the findings of the second edition of Connecting to Compete, a report on the new dataset for the 2010 Logistics Performance Index (LPI) and its component indicators. Based on a worldwide survey of global freight forwarders and express carriers, the LPI is a benchmarking tool...

This paper shows that the Poisson quasi-maximum likelihood estimator applied to the gravity model produces estimates in which, summing across all partners, actual and estimated total trade flows are identical. Other methods such as OLS do not have this desirable property. Indeed, Poisson is the...

The World Bank has developed a novel method for measuring countries’ connectivity in global networks and has applied it to the global air transport network. “Connectivity” in this context is defined as a country’s relative position in that network in terms of the total “push” and...

The critical need for private sector involvement in the fight against corruption is now an accepted fact, particularly in East Asia, where there is a buoyant private sector and where corruption has often been equated with cronyism. Cutting off corruption's supply side is a vital step in limiting...

Central Asia is often associated with the silk route or road, the longest overland trade route connecting China to Europe and one of the oldest in history. Growth opportunities and the future prosperity of the region are highly dependent upon the efficiency of its internal and external...

This is the first report presenting the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) and indicators. It aims to shed light on how different countries are doing in the area of trade logistics, and what they can do to improve their performance. It is based on a worldwide survey of the global freight...

The disruption to logistics and freight networks endangers trade and distribution of essential goods to combat the crisis and foster the recovery. Governments should work in coordination with logistics and retail industry, with a view to ensure continuity of shipping, air, trucking, and...

This paper proposes a new quantitative implementation of Balassa's idea that export composition and revealed comparative advantage inform the relationship between endowments in domestic factors of production and exports. It proposes that the export composition of countries is close to a...

A large proportion of the least developed countries are landlocked and their access to world markets depends on the availability of a trade corridor and transit systems. Based on empirical evidence from World Bank projects and assessments in Africa, Central Asia, and elsewhere, this paper...

Although attention has focused on public sector initiatives to fight corruption on the demand side, private companies in every region have developed programs to fight it on the supply side. Policymakers and advocacy groups-such as Transparency International-consider such preventive efforts to be...