Since 2006, the World Bank has been ranking almost 200 countries in terms of their business environment and the “ease of doing business” in these economies. The rationale behind this is the importance of a thriving private sector in promoting high and inclusive growth and development. It is...

The present paper analyzes the cyclicality of public spending on key social, economic and military sectors, including agriculture, education, health, social protection, transportation and military spending using data available for up to 40 developing countries spanning the period from 1980 to...

Bribes can either put "grease" or "sand" in the wheels of commerce, affecting firm performance (at the micro-level) and, ultimately, economic growth (at the macro-level). These two opposing hypotheses on the role corruption plays in countries with weak institutions raise an important empirical...

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in extractive industries (mining and quarrying) is expected to increase dramatically in many developing countries, due to the rising global demand for commodities. One key question for policymakers is whether this form of FDI could help spur investments in other...

Developing countries are presently experiencing or are shortly expected to see a “youth bulge” (a large number of young people in the national population) — some 71 in total and 11 in Asia alone — will face relatively greater employment and human capital investment challenges as a result...

Not all FDI are alike as far as their impact on various dimensions of human development is concerned. This paper focuses, in particular, on child labor and it undertakes a cross-country empirical analysis of this issue, using data on 100 countries spanning the period 1990-2009. Unlike earlier...

Is a dramatic slowdown in global economic growth going to erase much of the progress in the last decade in terms of human development in the developing world‘ How might the crisis affect progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals‘ To address these questions, this paper...