Watson, Crawford, and Farley examine the ways in which science and technology (S&T) support poverty alleviation and economic development and how these themes have been given emphasis or short shrift in various areas of the World Bank's work. Central to their thesis is the now well-established...

Community-driven development boasts many islands of success, but these have not scaled up to cover entire countries. Binswanger and Aiyar examine the possible obstacles to scaling up, and possible solutions. They consider the theoretical case for community-driven development and case studies of...

This paper contains abstracts of Policy, Research Working Paper series Numbers 2458 - 2498.

The study debates on active labor market programs (ALMPs) as a valuable employment policy tool intended to increase the quality of labor supply, and demand, versus the disincentive, and dependent passive measures in combating unemployment. While ALMPs have been implemented to varying degrees in...

This note provides a snapshot as of 2004 of the share of countries with an independent regulatory agency and with at least some private sector financing of its sectoral investment needs for electricity, water and sanitation, and telecommunications. Among other things, they show that: For...

The author explores the link between information flows and governance or institutional quality. Economic theory expounds on the importance of information on economic outcomes either through its direct effect on prices and quantities or through its effect on other factors such as institutions and...

The recent evolution of development thinking has highlighted popular involvement in decision making. Yet policy gridlock and stop-and-go implementation have been associated with excessive responsiveness to interest groups. This paper aims to pull together seemingly disparate strands of...

Inly since completion of the Uruguay Round have developing countries in East AsOnly since completion of the Uruguay Round have developing countries in East Asia and the Western Hemisphere shown interest in liberalizing services. Ambitious effortsare now being made to incorporate services in...

The authors examine competitiveness partnerships, which consist of structured dialogue between the public and private sector to improve the investment climate. The paper is designed to be used as a resource by donors, governments, or businesspeople who are interested in establishing,...

The authors use a computable general equilibrium model of the Russian economy to assess the impact of accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), which encompasses improved market access, tariff reduction, and reduction of barriers against multinational service providers. They assume that...