"Control of corporate assets by wealthy families in economies lacking institutional integrity is common. It has negative implications on corporate governance and adverse macroeconomic effects when it extends across a sufficiently large part of the country's corporate sector. Morck and Yeung...

The World Bank began a three-year pilot initiative to develop a framework for enhancing development benefits to local communities in hydropower projects. There has been a wide array of approaches in the past two decades that all have in common the objective of designing and implementing means...

This study examines the gender profile of the Russian Federation through a comprehensive review of the current literature (1248 publications on gender issues throughout the transition decade) on the conditions of women and men and on the gender disparities in a number of indicators. The report...

National systems for environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) are designed to improve the environmental and social performance of projects and support countries' sustainable development strategies. The objectives of this Literature Review are to identify trends, findings and gaps in...

"This paper uses firm-level data from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Surveys to study the process of convergence of transition countries with developed market economies. The study focuses on competition and market structure, finance and the structure of lending to firms, and...

"The authors examine the factors affecting the transition to self-employment in Bosnia and Herzegovina, using the World Bank Living Standard Measurement Survey panel household survey for the years 2001-2004. In the beginning of the sample, the country changed its legal framework, with the...

"This paper studies the factors banks perceive as drivers and obstacles to financing small and medium enterprises (SMEs), focusing on the role of competition and the institutional framework. Using a survey of banks in Argentina and Chile, the paper shows that, despite alleged differences in the...

"This paper documents several new patterns associated with firms issuing securities in foreign markets that motivate the need for and help guide future research. Besides noting that these international capital raisings grew almost four-fold from 1991 to 2005, accounting for 35 percent of all...

Global Development Finance (GDF), is the World Bank's annual review of recent trends in and prospects for financial flows to developing countries. It is an indispensable resource for governments, economists, investors, financial consultants, academics, bankers, and the entire development...