This Joint Staff Advisory Note reviews the first Annual Progress Report (APR) of The Gambia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). The APR indicates that The Gambia’s progress in implementing the PRSP has been uneven. Slow implementation mainly reflected low capacity, a lack of...

This paper examines Pakistan’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) Preparation Status Report. The formulation of the Interim PRSP (I-PRSP) was the first step in the direction of preparing a comprehensive national antipoverty strategy that encompasses the economic, structural, and...

This paper examines Congo’s Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (I-PRSP). Congo’s I-PRSP explains the features and causes of poverty in Congo. It provides a short- and medium-term vision of development as well as a strategic orientation for a return to sustainable and equitable growth....

This paper reviews Uzbekistan’s Interim Welfare Improvement Strategy Paper (I-WISP). I-WISP defines the main directions and measures aimed at improving living standards and reducing poverty among the population of Uzbekistan for 2005–10. The strategy is designed to further expand...

Using a simple model of two-sided markets, we show that, in the social optimum, platform pricing leads to an inherent cost recovery problem. This result is driven by the positive externality of participation that users on either side of the market exert on the opposite side. The contribution of...

Using urban household surveys, we constructed a panel dataset to study the effects of the Argentine macroeconomic crisis of 1999-2002 with the aim of (1) identifying the most vulnerable households, (2) investigating whether employment in the public sector and government spending served to...

This paper uses a partial equilibrium framework to evaluate the relative efficiency, distributional and revenue implications of rice tariffs and targeted transfers in Madagascar, especially in the context of identifying their respective roles for poverty alleviation. Although there are likely to...

As in other sectors, competition in finance matters for allocative, productive and dynamic efficiency. Theory suggests, however, that unfettered competition is not first best given the special features of finance. I review these analytics and describe how to assess the degree of competition in...

Going forward, Korea faces two closely related challenges: sustaining economic growth against the backdrop of a rapidly aging population and ameliorating income inequality. This paper argues that a gradual increase in social spending could promote more sustainable and inclusive growth in Korea....

We estimate a unified measure of inclusive growth for emerging markets by integrating their economic growth performance and income distribution outcomes, using data over three decades. Country distributions are calibrated by combining PPP GDP per capita and income distribution from survey data....