Why are carefully designed, sensible policies too often not adopted or implemented? When they are, why do they often fail to generate development outcomes such as security, growth, and equity? And why do some bad policies endure? World Development Report 2017: Governance and the Law addresses...

The economic thinking around the role of agriculture for development has evolved since the 1950s. Over the past decades, the agriculture sector has been rediscovered as a sector with great potential for triggering growth, reducing poverty and inequality, providing food security, and delivering...

This paper uses survey data from 120 developing countries to compare the role of institutions with firm characteristics at the time of creation of the firm in explaining the size, growth, and productivity of firms over their lifecycle. The study finds that firm-level characteristics have...

The impact of opening to trade on economic institutions is likely to be multifaceted and depend crucially on country-specific circumstances. In the past decade an active body of research has studied this relationship. This framework makes is especially clear why international trade opening has...

Resilient economic infrastructure plays an increasingly significant role in mitigating natural disaster risks, including hydrometeorological and geophysical hazards, especially in the contexts of climate variability and change. Building on the theoretical approaches to the key challenges in...

While all infrastructure public-private partnerships (PPPs) inevitably deal with financing, construction, regulatory, demand, and operational risks, among others, projects in disaster-prone regions must additionally develop commercially and technically viable solutions for managing disaster and...

Groundwater is a vital yet threatened resource in much of South Asia. This paper develops a model of groundwater transactions under payoff uncertainty arising from unpredictable fluctuations in groundwater availability during the agricultural dry season. The model highlights the trade-off...

There is growing evidence that financially inclusive countries are more financially stable and exhibit better micro- and macro-economic conditions conducive to financial well-being of individual consumers. In order to produce significant economic and societal benefits, financial inclusion needs...

This policy note was prepared in parallel to the report Pakistan at 100- Shaping the Future. The report Pakistan at 100 discusses options to accelerate and sustain growth in Pakistan so that the country becomes an upper middle-income country when it turns hundred years old in 2047. This policy...