The Big Picture: Global Trends Affecting Agricultural Finance -- Institutional and Process Innovations in Serving Rural Clients -- Dealing With Risks in Agricultural Finance -- Using Modern Technology for High-Quality Services in Rural Areas

This paper briefly reviews new indices of trade restrictiveness and trade facilitation that have been developed at the World Bank. The paper also compares the trade impact of different types of trade restrictions applied at the border with the effects of domestic policies that affect trade...

This paper investigates corruption and tax evasion and their firm-level determinants across 25,000 firms in 57 countries, a large fraction of which are small and medium enterprises in developing countries. Firms that pay more bribes also evade more taxes. Corruption acts as a tax on innovation,...

This volume brings together some of the most influential scholars in development economics to explore how to improve the well-being of the poor, how to design effective structures and institutions for poverty reduction and what the role of economic, political and social dimensions are (and...

This paper reviews and synthesizes theoretical and empirical research on the role of finance in developing countries. First, the paper presents the stylized facts about firms in developing nations as well as the legal, financial and broader institutional framework in which these firms operate....

Securitization: Wonder Drug or Financial Alchemy? -- Mobilising Capital for the Poor - How Does Structured Finance Fit in Emerging Markets? -- The Role of Public and Private Investors for Structured Finance in Emerging Markets -- Structured Finance - Mobilising New Means to Attract Capital --...

Mainstreaming Environmental Finance into Financial Markets - Relevance, Potential and Obstacles -- Mainstreaming Framework Conditions for Environmental Finance - The Role of the Public Sector -- Mainstreaming Environmental Finance Markets (I) - Small-Scale Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy...

The objective of this paper is to provide indicators of trade restrictiveness that include both measures of tariff and nontariff barriers for 91 developing and industrial countries. For each country, the authors estimate three trade restrictiveness indices. The first one summarizes the degree of...

Empirical evidence suggests that global trade reforms are unlikely to produce analogous results across countries, especially when analyzing their effect on poverty. This implies that the analysis of trade reform on social welfare cannot be generalized and needs to be conducted on a country by...