The authors assess whether the placement of bank branches in Bangladesh responds to unexploited potential for nonfarm rural development. They compare the branch location choicesof a large new private nonprofit bank, the famous Grameen Bank, with those of more traditional government banks. They...

This paper considers alternatives to disperse the accumulated pension rights during the liquidation phase or retirement. First, the paper classifies the risks that affect pensioners, discusses the defined benefit and defined contribution options, and classifies pension contracts according to...

Fiscal problems are prompting many developing nations to amend and sometimes restructure their national old-age programs. As they do, these countries seek guidance on how to design market and regulatory structures to enhance their chances of success. This paper investigates the types of risks...

The creation of fully funded, privately managed pension systems may have significant positive direct effects on savings, growth, and welfare. However, the indirect link, via capital market development, may be as important. This hypothesis is verified with evidence from emerging economies that...

The authors investigate whether resident enterprise managers have an informational advantage about the countries in which they work. They propose a method for extracting information available to resident managers but unknown to investors and forecasters. They rest their hypothesis of...

This paper contains a numerical listing of working papers produced by the Policy, Planning, and External Affairs Complex. Each citation contains a brief abstract, and the contact point for the paper.

Micro-finance supports mainly informal activities that often have low market demand. It may be thus hypothesized that the aggregate poverty impact of micro-finance in an economy with low economic growth is modest or nonexistent. The observed borrower-level poverty impact is then a result of...

The author examines the extent to which micro-credit reduces poverty and vulnerability through a case study of BRAC, one of the largest providers of micro-credit to the poor in Bangladesh. Household consumption data collected from 1,072 households is used to show that the largest effect on...

The international capital market as it has been evolving provides an opportunity for developing countrieslike India to attract the required capital inflow for accelerating their pace of development, manage their foreign exchange assets and liabilities to their advantage and develop export...

The literature on safety nets has become technically more precise by drawing on advances in contract theory and optimal governance structure. This paper begins with a treatment of some aspects of the theory. The author's approach draws more on institutional economics, and more precisely on the...