This is a background paper to the 2014 World Development Report. Risk is inherent to the pursuit of opportunity. This … value chains. First, it examines the risk-sharing mechanisms that firms provide from the national and global perspectives …

Which cities have the highest risk of human and economic losses due to natural hazards? And how will urban exposure to … major hazards change over the coming decades? This paper develops a global urban disaster risk index that evaluates the … components of this risk measure are urban hazard characteristics, exposure, and vulnerability. For earthquakes, cyclones, floods …

This paper studies the effect of rolling out mobile money agents in rural Northern Uganda. In a randomized experiment …. Administrative data on mobile money transactions suggest that the agent rollout increased the probability of sending and receiving … finds no effect on savings, agricultural outcomes, or poverty. Overall, the findings add new evidence that mobile money can …

This study intends to increase understanding of how different types of mobile money services have developed in … should allow (or at least not explicitly forbid) nonbank financial institutions to issue money and use banking agents or … mobile money services …

access in the form of phone-based money transfer and storage, led by the M-PESA system introduced in 2007. Currently, 93 … percent of Kenyans are mobile phone users and 73 percent are mobile money customers. Additionally, 23 percent use mobile money … at least once a day. New potential for mobile money has come with the rise of interest-earning bank-integrated mobile …

Mobile banking is growing at a remarkable speed around the world. In the process it is creating considerable …

penetration of mobile money, moving beyond simple person-to-person exchanges toward adoption by private firms. This study explores … whether there is a relationship between firm adoption of mobile money and firm investment. Using firm-level data that are … relationship is found between mobile money use and the probability of a firm?s purchase of fixed assets. This relationship is …

. Developments in the U.S. economy, the world's largest, have effects far beyond its shores. A surge in U.S. growth could provide a … role in the world economy, activity in the rest of the world is also important for the United States …