"Over the past two decades, globalization, and more specifically the increased exposure to competition from low-price producers in China and India, has created a new economic environment for other emerging economies. The most advantageous way for manufacturing firms in those economies to...

This policy brief highlights the key messages for policy makers from the World Bank report "Seeing the Invisible: A Strategic Report on Groundwater Quality" (Ravenscroft and Lytton 2022a). This report and “A Practical Manual on Groundwater Quality Monitoring" (Ravenscroft and Lytton 2022b)...

Indonesia has seen vast improvements in access to education over the past thirty years. It is a good example of a country that has followed a disciplined linear approach to EFA: Indonesia focused first on primary school access, next on lower secondary school access, and is only now attempting to...

"Food policy often depends on markets and markets depend on institutions. But how good do institutions have to be before reforms can be launched? Relying on well timed surveys of agricultural prices and a joint study by the Government of Bulgaria and the World Bank on agricultural market...

"Although it is widely accepted that financial development is associated with higher growth, the evidence on the channels through which credit affects growth on the micro-level is scant. Using data from a cross section of Bulgarian firms, the authors estimate the impact of access to credit (as...

"This paper analyzes the process of institutional transformation in Bulgaria and assesses the extent to which it has established institutions and policies fostering domestic economic activity and integration into global markets. After a brief review of characteristics and achieved progress in...

"This paper looks at Bulgaria's industrial restructuring through the lenses of its evolving specialization in international division of labor and integration into international markets with a special emphasis on EU markets. Its major findings can be summarized as follows: (1) Developments in...