Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group discusses efforts of the leaders of the United Nations system toward the Ebola epidemic, and their work toward a unified approach on the ground in West Africa. The goal is to get to zero cases. He talks about the need for community-based care...

In his first public speech as President of the World Bank, Robert S. McNamara stressed that the Bank faced the question of what action the Bank, as a development organization, needs to take to overcome the recent mood of frustration and failure among developing countries and donors. He noted...

In his final address to the Board of Directors, President Robert S. McNamara discusses the future role of the Bank during a time in which surging oil prices threaten critical development tasks. He examines four themes: the prospects for economic growth and social advance in oil-importing...

Over the past decade (2003-12), Latin America has experienced strong income growth and a notable reduction in income inequality, with the region's Gini coefficient falling from 55.6 to 51.8. Previous studies have warned about the sustainability

This paper discusses the impact of a gradual, pre-announced significant increase of the minimum wage during 2013-16 in Romania. The main finding is that the positive effects prevail when the starting level of increase in the minimum wage is very low and the economy is in a negative output gap....

In this note we estimate the short-term economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis on Brazilian families vis-a-vis labor shocks. The analysis, using a microsimulation model which incorporates subnational shocks from a computable general equilibrium growth model, shows that over 30 million workers in...

This paper provides early insights into the labor market impacts of the ongoing Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) crisis in Bangladesh, with a special focus on three especially vulnerable areas: poor areas in Dhaka and Chittagong City Corporations and Cox's Bazar district. The authors build on...

This paper assesses the impact of immigration to Western Europe on the exposure of native-born workers to economic and health risks created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Using various measures of occupational risks, it first shows that immigrant workers, especially those coming from lower-income...

This paper uses microsimulation techniques to quantify the potential ex-ante impacts of several minimum wage increases on labor market outcomes in Kosovo. The results show that the overall impacts of a minimum wage increase in the baseline scenario are likely to be modest, although the impacts...

Central America has come a long way both in terms of economic and political stability. Increasingly the region is focusing on implementing productivity-enhancing reforms as well as supporting reductions in poverty and inequality. This report analyzes recent trends in public social spending in...