The geography of poverty has changed. More than 70 percent of the world’s poor live not in low-income countries, but in middle-income countries. In 2008, nearly 570 million people lived on less than US$1.25 a day in South Asia, compared to 385 million in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, nearly...

As mobile phone ownership rates have risen dramatically in Africa, there has been increased interest in using mobile telephones as a data collection platform. This note draws on two largely successful pilot projects in Tanzania and South Sudan that used mobile phones for high-frequency data...

Sustained growth in emerging markets and developing economies requires long-term, reliable capital to finance productive investment, including in basic infrastructure. However, the availability and composition of long-term financing is constrained, partly due to fragile market conditions and...

Newly discovered oil reserves off the coast of Brazil present a unique opportunity for the country to boost an already successful trajectory of growth and development. This note examines potential choices for the government when it contemplates how to disburse this newfound wealth. This review...

The cost of the subsidy system in Morocco peaked at 6.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012, an amount larger than the country’s total investment budget for that year. Direct subsidies to households in 2013 (October 2013 prices) are estimated at DH34.4 billion (US$4.1 billion, or...

State and local debt and the debt of quasi-public agencies have grown in importance as a result of fiscal decentralization, rapid urbanization, and the increasing role played by private capital. However, with debt comes the risk of insolvency. This note outlines a set of aligned fiscal...

If there was one bold and timely policy to transform Indonesia, this is it. In 2012, spending on energy subsidies claimed more than one-fifth of the central government’s budget, that is, more than three times the allocation for infrastructure such as roads, water, electricity and irrigation...

The global economic crisis that broke out in 2008 has reawakened interest in fiscal policy. In the early stages of the crisis, there was a widespread turn to countercyclical fiscal stimulus. Furthermore, the recent euro area crisis has underlined the importance of long-term fiscal sustainability...

As the year 2012 unfolds, its main legacy will be its game changing impact on global financial markets. Waning global growth along with central banksÕ bold monetary easing policies in advanced economies (AEs) to try to reverse it are changing market dynamics in unexpected ways, across both AEs...

Mongolia’s mineral-rich economy was hit extremely hard by the global downturn during 2008–9, when copper prices plunged, external demand fell, and growth collapsed. The shock exposed serious underlying weaknesses in the management of the country’s natural resource wealth,...