The eurozone crisis started in Greece in 2009-10, spread into Ireland and Portugal, and, from there, quickly spread to the larger economies of Spain and Italy. By the autumn of 2011, it threatened the entire global financial system. In Europe's Crisis, Europe's Future, an international group of...

The World Development Report (WDR) has become such a fixture that it is easy to forget the circumstances under which it was born and the Bank's motivation for producing such a report at that time. In the first chapter of this essay, the authors provide a brief background on the circumstances of...