This paper compiles project-level data from the World Bank's lending history to describe patterns and the composition of its portfolio. The paper focuses particularly on the effect of countries' transition from International Development Association to International Bank for Reconstruction and...

This study uses loan-level data on syndicated lending to a large sample of developing countries between 1993 and 2017 to estimate the mobilization effects of multilateral development banks (MDBs), that is, their ability to crowd-in capital from private creditors. Controlling for a large set of...

What major insights have emerged from development economics in the past decade, and how do they matter for the World Bank? This challenging question was recently posed by World Bank Group President David Malpass to the staff of the Development Research Group. This paper assembles a set of 13...

This paper shows that the increased policy-selectivity of aid allocations observed in recent years provides recipient countries an incentive to improve policies. The paper estimates that a change in the World Banks Country Policy and Institutional Assessment policy index from 1.5 to 2 for a...

Emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) weathered the 2009 global recession relatively well. However, the impact of the global recession varied across economies. EMDEs with stronger pre-crisis fundamentals - such as large foreign exchange reserves, sound fiscal positions, and low...