This eighteenth annual report assesses what a more market-driven and integrated world means for workers. It asks which development strategies best address workers' needs, and what domestic labor market policies can do to establish a more equitable distribution of income, greater job security,...

This eighteenth annual report assesses what a more market-driven and integrated world means for workers. It asks which development strategies best address workers' needs, and what domestic labor market policies can do to establish a more equitable distribution of income, greater job security,...

The International Development Association (IDA) has included jobs as a special theme since the 17th Replenishment of IDA (IDA17) in 2014, when it explicitly recognized the role played by labor markets in intermediating between growth and inclusion. This acknowledgment of jobs marked a shift in...

This evaluation is the first stage of the Independent Evaluation Group's assessment of the World Bank's support for more, better, and more inclusive jobs through International Development Association (IDA) financing, and it assesses the implementation of IDA-supported interventions directly...

"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...

"Political economy explanations for fiscal profligacy are dominated by models of bargaining among organized interest groups over group-specific targeted benefits financed by generalized taxation. These models predict that governments consisting of a coalition of political parties spend more than...

"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...

"The authors determine how time delays affect international trade using newly collected World Bank data on the days it takes to move standard cargo from the factory gate to the ship in 126 countries. They estimate a modified gravity equation, controlling for endogeneity and remoteness. On...