This is a background paper to the 2014 World Development Report. Risk is inherent to the pursuit of opportunity. This paper surveys the recent literature and looks at the risks and opportunities firms and their workers face in the global value chains. First, it examines the risk-sharing...

This paper examines the evolving importance of banks and securities markets during the process of economic development. As economies develop, they increase their demand for the services provided by securities markets relative to those provided by banks, such that securities markets become...

This paper shows how badly a market economy may respond to a positive productivity shock in an environment with asymmetric information about project quality: some, all, or even more than all the benefits from the increase in productivity may be dissipated. In the model, based on Bernanke and...

This paper studies the extent of bank competition in the Middle East and Northern Africa region during 1994-2008, using non-structural measures of competition such as the H-statistic and the Lerner index. Both these measures suggest that banking sector competition in the region is lower relative...

The main objective of this paper is to rethink the use of market discipline for prudential purposes in light of lessons from the financial crisis. The paper develops the main building blocks of a market discipline framework, and argues for the need to take an expansive view of the concept. It...

Under the traditional"competition-fragility"view, more bank competition erodes market power, decreases profit margins, and results in reduced franchise value that encourages bank risk taking. Under the alternative"competition-stability"view, more market power in the loan market may result in...

This paper proposes a framework to analyze competition in the banking sector using Jordan as an example. In particular, the paper pursues a multi-pronged approach to analyze competition including (i) an examination of the extent to which the market is contestable (that is, has low barriers to...

As crude oil prices reach new highs, there is renewed concern about how external shocks will affect growth and poverty in developing countries. This paper describes a macro-micro framework for examining the structural and distributional consequences of a significant external shock-an increase in...

Little cross-cutting conclusions emerge from comparative studies on the impact of structural adjustment on Sub-Saharan African agricultural performance. This paper aims to illuminate this long-standing debate by adopting a novel quantitative, sectoral and long-term approach controlling for...

This paper looks into institutional and other macro determinants of prevalence of informal dependent employment, as well as informal self-employment, in European countries, using European Social Survey data on work without legal contract in on 30 countries, covering years 2004-2009. Consistently...