"Regulation is purportedly enacted to serve specific social purposes. In reality, however, it follows a more complex political economy process, where legitimate social goals are mixed with the objectives of particular interest groups. Whatever its justification and objectives, regulation can...

The EBRD-World Bank Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) is a joint initiative of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank. The BEEPS has been carried out in three rounds in 1999, 2002, and 2005 and covers virtually all of the countries of...

There are an estimated 1.2 billion regular smokers in the world today, approximately one third of the global population over the age of 15, and the numbers are rising (World Health Organization 2002). Studies show that many smokers still do not know that tobacco causes disease and premature...

"The authors propose a "bottom up" approach to link public investment programs with a class of macro models recently developed to quantify Strategy Papers for Human Development (SPAHD) in low-income countries. The methodology involves establishing constant-price projections of investment outlays...

Policymakers in developing countries face multiple challenges related to climate change. To provide policymakers with reliable recommendations on a variety of climate related policies, the WBG has a diverse and complementary set of models. The analytics range from evaluating the aggregate,...

This note assesses recent macroeconomic developments in Belarus and presents a medium-term economic outlook for 2013-2016 in three scenarios. These scenarios are sensitive to underlying assumptions and are provided to illustrate the main macroeconomic policy choices, available to Belarus. The...