This paper analyzes the recent evolution and impact of the global economic crisis on the offshore services industry. Using a global value chains framework, the authors classify the offshore services sector in a comprehensive set of general and industry-specific activities that correspond to...

The author examines the role of different data collection methods--including the types of data they produce--in the analysis of social phenomena in developing countries. He points out that one confusing factor in the"quantitative-qualitative"debate is that a distinction is not clearly made...

Imagine several mountain climbers, scaling a cliff face, who want protection from falling. One way to protect them would be to place a net at the bottom of the cliff to catch any climber just before he hits the ground. Another would be to provide a rope, and a set of movable devices that can be...

Recipient government responses to development project aid have typically been studied at high levels of aggregation, using cross-country comparisons and/or aggregate time series data. Yet increasingly the relevant decisions are being made at the local level, in response to specific...

This paper provides the key elements to develop an integrated approach for measuring and monitoring city performance globally. The paper reviews the role of cities and why indicators are important. Then it discusses past approaches to city indicators and the systems developed to date, including...

Little of the literature on nutrition between 1960 and the 1980s included assessments of effective nutrition programs. In this important study, the author focuses on factors associated with successful nutrition programs in Africa. This report concentrates on summarizing the information received...

The proliferation of mobile phones in developing countries has generated a wave of interest in collecting high-frequency socioeconomic surveys using this technology. This paper considers lessons from one such survey effort in a difficult environment -- the South Sudan Experimental Phone Survey,...

Studies on innovation and international trade have traditionally focused on manufacturing because neither was seen as important for services. Moreover, the few existing studies on services focus only on industrial countries, although in many developing countries services are already the largest...

Many population, health and nutrition (PHN) programs are designed to elicit behaviour changes in poor people living at the geographic and social peripheries. Few programs specifically target the disadvantaged, however, and research about clients focuses mainly on routine statistics rather than...

A new cross-country database on services policy reveals a perverse pattern: many landlocked countries restrict trade in the very services that connect them with the rest of the world. On average, telecommunications and air-transport policies are significantly more restrictive in landlocked...