"China has emerged as one of the top recipients of foreign direct investment in the world. Meanwhile, the successful transition experience of many Central and Eastern European countries has also allowed them to attract an increasing share of global foreign direct investment. In this paper, the...

"This paper examines the role of private support institutions in determining small and medium enterprise (SME) growth and performance in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It finds that SMEs in SSA get around market failures and lack of formal institutions by creating private governance systems in the...

"This paper explores various strategic options available to Japanese firms faced with the increasing market pressures in the global economy. Whether Japanese firms are able to retain the competitive edge will depend on the continuing gains in their manufacturing capability, their capacity to...

The livelihoods of the world's poor rise and fall with the fate of agriculture. Enhancing the ability of smallholders to connect with the knowledge, networks, and institutions necessary to improve their productivity, food security, and employment opportunities is a fundamental development...

This report evaluates the role, operational models and identifies good practices of programs that seek to accelerate innovative entrepreneurship by managing, nurturing and leveraging social and business networks. The report discusses the role of venture acceleration networks, using networks to...

The livelihoods of the world's poor rise and fall with the fate of agriculture. Enhancing the ability of smallholders to connect with the knowledge, networks, and institutions necessary to improve their productivity, food security, and employment opportunities is a fundamental development...

"Past research into the determinants of international trade highlighted the importance of the basic spatial gravity model augmented by additional variables representing sources of friction. Studies modeled many sources of friction using various proxies, including indices based on expert judgment...

This report concerns two streams of Technical Assistance provided by the World Bank Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) to the Government of Vietnam. They are: strengthening the enabling environment, capacity building systems and evidence-based learning and lesson sharing. Strengthening demand...

This is a background paper to the Pacific Possible report. The Pacific Island countries control one of the World's largest and healthiest tuna stock. They have been able to significantly increase revenue from fisheries licenses over the past few years through the introduction of the Vessel Day...