"Expanding and improving basic education in developing countries requires, at a minimum, teachers who are present in the classroom and motivated to teach, but this essential input is often missing. This paper describes the findings of a series of recent World Bank and other studies on teacher...

"Infrastructure projects are often technically complicated and highly customized. Therefore, procurement competition tends to be limited. Competition is the single most important factor toward auction efficiency and anti-corruption. However, the degree of competition realized is closely related...

"This paper critically reviews existing energy demand forecasting methodologies highlighting the methodological diversities and developments over the past four decades in order to investigate whether the existing energy demand models are appropriate for capturing the specific features of...

"The initial occupational placements of male immigrants in the U.S. labor market vary significantly by country of origin even when education and other factors are taken into account. Does the heterogeneity persist over time? Using data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 U.S. Censuses, this study...

"The authors examine the factors affecting the transition to self-employment in Bosnia and Herzegovina, using the World Bank Living Standard Measurement Survey panel household survey for the years 2001-2004. In the beginning of the sample, the country changed its legal framework, with the...

"It is generally expected that immigrants do not fare as well as the native-born in the U.S. labor market. The literature also documents that Blacks experience lower labor market outcomes than Whites. This paper innovates by studying the interaction between race and immigration. The study...

"This paper compares the wages of workers inside the United States to the wages of observably identical workers outside the United States-controlling for country of birth, country of education, years of education, work experience, sex, and rural-urban residence. This is made possible by new and...

"In recent debates, trade preference erosion has been viewed by some as damaging to developing countries, and by others as insignificant, except in a few cases. But little data have been available to back either view. The objective of this paper is to improve our measures of the size,...

"In this paper the authors reconsider the idea of an earnings-related pension system with reserves invested in indexed government bonds as a mechanism to both ensure financial sustainability and improve security. They start by reviewing the characterization of the sustainable rate of return of...