This note reviews recent World Bank experience with projects using results-based lending in Social Protection and Labor (SP&L) in preparation for stepped-up engagement under the proposed Program-for-Results (P4R). The P4R is expected to be launched in 2012. Given the already strong use of...

The literature on product quality in markets where product attributes are not readily observable indicates that information asymmetries and incentive problems may lead to the under-provision of quality. This paper contributes to this literature by estimating the effects of village-level...

This paper examines the role of the Indian diaspora in the outsourcing of work to India. The data are taken from oDesk, the world's largest online platform for outsourced contracts. Despite oDesk minimizing many of the frictions that diaspora connections have traditionally overcome, diaspora...

This paper poses a question: do firms in developing countries not innovate because they are unwilling to? The question moves away from the conventional focus on the obstacles (such as the lack of access to finance) that hinder firms'innovation ability. The World Bank's Enterprise Survey is used...

This paper examines the interaction between formal (organized) and informal (unorganized) plants in the manufacturing sector in India. How has the size and productivity of the plants in the organized sector affected the plants in the unorganized sector? How have informal plants affected formal...

Trade liberalizations have been shown to improve domestic firms'performance through the new varieties of imported intermediate inputs. This paper uses a unique, representative sample of Bangladeshi garment firms to highlight that local intermediate inputs may also enhance domestic...

The authors use comparable micro level panel data for 14 countries and a set of identically specified empirical models to investigate the relationship between exports and productivity. The overall results are in line with the big picture that is by now familiar from the literature: Exporters are...

The research and development (R&D) sector is considered one of the main driving forces of sustainable growth in the long run. The sector, however, also shows excessive volatility which raises interesting questions regarding the sources of this volatility as well as the nature of the relation...

The objective of this paper is to provide a review of the theoretical and, in particular, empirical literature on performance-related pay in the public sector spanning the fields of public administration, psychology, economics, education, and health with the aim of distilling useful lessons for...

Based on an IO structure, the ARIO-inventory model simulates the economic consequences and responses to a natural disaster. It represents explicitly production bottlenecks, models a flexibility in production capacity in case of scarcity, and introduces inventories as an additional flexibility in...