This book presents selected papers from the ABCDE Meetings, held May 17 -18, 2007 in Bled, Slovenia. Hosted by the World Bank and Government if Slovenia, more than 400 experts from countries around the world met to deliberate the theme: Private Sector and Development. This volume presents papers...

This annual conference is a global gathering of the world’s leading scholars and practitioners. Among the attendees are participants from developing countries, think tanks, NGOs, and international institutions. These papers concern: Trade and economic performance: does Africa’s fragmentation...

The Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics 2011: Development Challenges in a Post-crisis World (ABCDE) presents papers from a global gathering of the world?s leading development scholars and practitioners held May 31 - June 2, 2010. Paper themes include: Environmental Commons and...

"The "developing world's middle class" is defined here as those who are not poor when judged by the median poverty line of developing countries, but are still poor by US standards. The "Western middle class" is defined as those who are not poor by US standards. Although barely 80 million people...

This paper reviews the literature on tax assignment in decentralized countries. Ideally, own-source revenues should be sufficient to enable at least the richest subnational governments to finance from their own resources all locally-provided services that primarily benefit local residents....

The need to construct an effective strategy for industrial development in low-income countries has been largely ignored by development economists because industrial policies have failed in many developing countries. This does not imply, however, that industrial development cannot be promoted....