"The paper presents a major overhaul to the World Bank's past estimates of global poverty, incorporating new and better data. Extreme poverty-as judged by what "poverty" means in the world's poorest countries-is found to be more pervasive than we thought. Yet the data also provide robust...

To the surprise of many observers, the 2005 International Comparison Program (ICP) found substantially higher purchasing power parity (PPP) rates, relative to market exchange rates, in most developing countries. For example, China’s price level index - the ratio of its PPP to its exchange rate...

Development impact calls for knowledgeable development practitioners. How then do the operational staff of the largest development agency value and use its research? Is there an incentive to learn and does it translate into useful knowledge? A new survey reveals that the bulk of the World Bank's...

Against what standards should we judge the developing world's overall performance against poverty going forward? The paper proposes two measures, each with both "optimistic" and "ambitious" targets for 2022, 10 years from the time of writing. The first measure is absolute consumption poverty, as...

While the 2008 financial crisis is global in nature, it is likely to have heterogeneous welfare impacts within the developing world, with some countries, and some people, more vulnerable than others. It also threatens to have lasting impacts for some of those affected, notably through the...