"The current account can be understood as the outcome of investment decisions made by domestic and foreign investors. These decisions can be decomposed into a portfolio rebalancing and a portfolio growth component. This paper provides empirical evidence of the importance of portfolio rebalancing...

Immunization deserves high priority, especially in developing countries, for three reasons: vaccine-preventable diseases, disproportionately affect the poorest fifth of the population; immunization is among the most cost-effective interventions, and has a major impact in reducing the burden of...

There is a general consensus that The Gambia's civil service has a number of key capacity weaknesses. Pay is too low to hire, motivate and retain key technical and professional staffs. Staffs are not managed to achieve results, neither rewarded for good performance nor sanctioned for poor...

Brazil's pension system takes up an oversized proportion of its social protection spending. It comprises of Regime Geral de Previdéncia Social (RGPS), covering private sector workers, and over two thousand Regimes Pröprios de Previdéncia Social (RPPS), insuring public civil servants at...

The question of how best to compensate veterans in the aftermath of war is one that is relevant to many developing countries. Civil wars and independence struggles often affect the poorest regions of the world, and leave an enormous financial burden, including benefits to former fighters and...

"For decades the world's agricultural markets have been highly distorted by national government policies, but very differently for different commodities. Hence a weighted average across countries of nominal rates of assistance or consumer tax equivalents for a product can be misleading as an...