Solvency is an intertemporal concept, relating to the present value of revenues and expenditures, and encompassing both assets and liabilities. But the standard practice among policy makers, financial market participants and international financial institutions is to assess the strength of the...

The Government of China has placed strong emphasis on addressing problems related to agriculture, farmers, and rural society, with the development of a"new socialist countryside"designated as a top priority for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2006-2010). The financing of public services in rural...

This paper reviews the progress made in the literature toward defining and measuring the affordability of utilities. It highlights the relative merits of alternate affordability metrics; the practical challenges to their operationalization, including the underlying data requirements; and their...

This paper investigates the African financial development and financial inclusion gaps relative to other peer developing countries. The paper uses a set of variables related to financial development and inclusion. It first estimates the gaps between African countries and other developing...

This paper examines how financial development influences foreign direct investment. The direct and indirect sector-specific effects that source countries'financial development and destination countries'financial development can have on foreign direct investment are first identified in a...

This paper investigates the effect that tight credit conditions had on outward foreign direct investment flows during the 2008-2010 global financial crisis. A difference-in-differences approach is used to isolate a"credit channel"impact of the global financial crisis on foreign direct...

This work presents a stochastic framework for assessing public debt sustainability and applies it to the case of Mauritania. The sustainability assessment projects solvency and liquidity indicators -- public debt stock and gross financing needs relative to GDP -- for 2014-23. The analysis uses...

This paper uses uniquely matched household, enterprise and community survey data from four major regions in rural Ethiopia to characterize the performance, constraints and opportunities of nonfarm enterprises. The nonfarm enterprise sector is sizeable, particularly important for women, and plays...

In this paper, the authors examine the impact of reductions in barriers to migration on the consumption of rural households in China. The authors find that increased migration from rural villages leads to significant increases in consumption per capita, and that this effect is stronger for...

The first part of this paper reviews the literature on the relation between finance and growth. The second part of the paper reviews the literature on the historical and policy determinants of financial development. Governments play a central role in shaping the operation of financial systems...