This paper derives the skill content of 30 countries, ranging from low-income to high-income ones, from the occupational structure of their economies. Five different skills are defined.. Cross-country measures of skill content show that the intensity of national production of manual skills...

Life chances explore the state of equality of opportunities in Turkey. It builds on the concepts and ideas presented in the World Development Report 2006: equity and development. The authors assess how today's distribution of wealth and the success of children in learning to read and write are...

This poverty note analyzes the usefulness of poverty maps, and how they can be constructed using census and survey data, for the use and benefit of policy makers to focus scarce development resources. The note goes on to describe various kinds of poverty maps, such as those based on indexes of...

Using panel data for Peru for the period 1994-2000, we find that when households receive two or more services jointly, the welfare increases of the household, as measured by changes in consumption, are larger than when services are provided separately. Such an increase appears to be more than...

The cooperation between international organizations, private banks, and national governments as put forward in the Baker Plan has prevented major disruptions of the international financial system resulting from the debt crisis. Rescheduling agreements have been reached in large numbers....

A number of highly indebted developing countries have experienced severe foreign exchange shortages for a couple of years. They could not simply roll over old debt any more by taking up new loans. Since export revenues could not be raised sufficiently, quite a few countries resorted to a...

In the past few years, the role of international organizations involved in supplying developing countries with capital has changed - not only have they increased their volume of lending, but they have also become catalytic agents stimulating continuing private bank lending to less developed...