Transport infrastructure is deemed to be central to development and consumes a large fraction of the development assistance envelope. Yet there is debate about the economic impact of road projects. This paper proposes an approach to assess the differential development impacts of alternative road...

This survey reviews the current state of the economic literature, assessing the impact of transport policies on growth, inclusion, and sustainability in a developing country context. The findings are summarized and methodologies are critically assessed, especially those dealing with endogeneity...

Road construction has often been viewed as the precursor to deforestation, especially in tropical forests. Traditional responses to such threats have been reactive, with attempts to mitigate impacts through physical measures, or the establishment of protected areas. These approaches often have...

Informal settlements are a permanent feature of South Africa's cities. Estimates from the General Household Survey by Statistics South Africa show that more than 26 percent of all households in the country's six metropolitan areas live in informal dwellings. The government's policy efforts have...

Levels of economic development vary widely within countries in the Americas. This paper argues that part of this variation has its roots in the colonial era. Colonizers engaged in different economic activities in different regions of a country, depending on local conditions. Some activities were...

This paper investigates the relationship between mining and spatial inequality in Africa during 2001-12. The identification strategy is based on a unilateral causation between mining and district inequality. The findings show that when minerals are aggregated, mining increases district...

The 2009 global recession demonstrated, once again, the importance of crisis prevention as well as the critical need for preserving policy room so that emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) can act when their economies are hit by shocks. And now, with the global growth outlook still...

This paper examines the state of reverse mortgage markets in selected countries around the world and considers the potential benefits and risks of these products from a financial inclusion and economic benefit standpoint. Despite potentially increasing demand from aging societies -- combined...

Developing countries made considerable gains during the first decade of the 21st century. Their economies grew at unprecedented rates, resulting in large reduction in extreme poverty and a significant expansion of the middle class. But more recently that progress has slowed with an economic...

Two long-established stylized facts in the urban and development economics literatures are that: (a) a country's level of economic development is strongly positively correlated with its level of urbanization; and (b) a country's level of urbanization is strongly negatively correlated with the...