In the past decade, hundreds of impact evaluation studies have measured the learning outcomes of education interventions in developing countries. The impact magnitudes are often reported in terms of "standard deviations," making them difficult to communicate to policy makers beyond education...

Morocco 2040: Emerging by Investing in Intangible Capital documents the major economic and social strides made by Morocco over the past 15 years and analyzes the economic conditions for accelerating the pace of economic catch-up by 2040. A virtuous yet realistic scenario suggests that with...

There is a divergence in the returns of top-performing firms and the rest of the economy, especially in industries that rely on a skilled labor force, raising concerns about their market power. This paper shows that the divergence is explained by the mismeasurement of intangible capital....

By improving their skills, health, knowledge, and resilience-their human capital-people can be more productive, flexible, and innovative. Human capital is a central driver of sustainable growth and poverty reduction. Investments in human capital have become more important as the nature of work...

Social scientists frequently rely on the cardinal comparability of test scores to assess achievement gaps between population subgroups and their evolution over time. This approach has been criticized due to the ordinal nature of test scores and the sensibility of results to order-preserving...

From pork to performance illuminates the politics of how public resources are spent and the difficulty of the 'last mile' of service delivery. Crumbling facilities, absentee teachers, and roads to nowhere waste resources and retard development in many countries around the world. These failures...

The Kyrgyz Republic became a parliamentary democracy in 2010 following political turmoil and ethnic unrest. Kyrgyz Republic's economy has been resilient; however, the growth momentum of the past few years has been declining due to the difficult global economic environment and regional conflicts'...

The Subnational DeMPA is a methodology for assessing subnational debt management performance at the level of local government through a comprehensive set of indicators spanning the full range of subnational debt management functions. The SN DeMPA methodology was revised and aligned to the...

This paper presents findings from a performance evaluation of laboratories in Kenya supported under the East Africa Public Health Laboratory Networking Project (EAPHLNP). The aim of the evaluation was to document progress and lessons learned, to enhance performance and foster sustainability