The aim of this paper is to analyze the dynamic effect of social and political instability on output. Using a panel of up to 183 countries from 1980 to 2010, the results of the paper suggest that social conflicts have a significant and negative impact on output in the short-term with the...

This paper assesses the effect of constrained trade finance on trade flows in countries undergoing financial and balance of payments crises. Most of the countries that had a major crisis had a significant trade contraction, while trade-related finance declined sharply. However, trade may also be...

Previous Poverty and Shared Prosperity reports have conveyed the difficult message that the world is not on track to meet the global goal of reducing extreme poverty to 3 percent by 2030. This edition brings the unwelcome news that COVID-19, along with conflict and climate change, has not merely...

Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group discusses the opportunity to create a world free from the stain of poverty and economic exclusion. He states that the environmental challenge is a fundamental threat to economic development and the fight against poverty in the world. He believes...

Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, discusses the twin goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting prosperity among the poorest 40 percent in low and middle-income countries. The strategy is summed up in three words: grow, invest, and insure. He talks about the need to be...

Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, discusses strategies to address inequality that even the poorest nations can adopt, whether through conditional cash transfers, connecting farmers to markets or rural electrification. The lesson is that inequality is not an unsolvable mystery....

In 2006-07, the Water and Sanitation Program-South Asia (WSP-SA) initiated a research toidentify barriers to service delivery for the urban poor. The research included a review ofvarious initiatives from across the globe that have resulted in improved service delivery for theurban poor and...

This note describes how poverty measures reported by the World Bank can be replicated using the Stata command povcalnet. Users can estimate poverty at any poverty line for the world, regions or sets of countries, by directly querying the World Bank's database of household surveys. The command...

In recent years, it has become clear that many children around the world are not learning to read proficiently. As a major contributor to human capital deficits, the learning crisis undermines sustainable growth and poverty reduction. To spotlight this crisis, we are introducing the concept of...