Using 2005 firm level data for 26 countries in Eastern and Central Europe, this paper estimates performance gaps between male and female-owned businesses, while controlling for location by industry and country. The findings show that female entrepreneurs have a significantly smaller scale of...

In this summary report and a series of country case studies, infoDev is exploring the transformative role that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can have in post-conflict nations during the process of reconstruction. The case studies look at countries at different stages of...

The Little Data Book on Financial Inclusion 2015 is a pocket edition of the Global Financial Inclusion Database published in 2015 in “The Global Findex Database 2014: Measuring Financial Inclusion around the World” by Asli Demirguc-Kunt, Leora Klapper, Dorothe Singer, and Peter Van...

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, interest in systemic risk has surged among academics and policy makers. The mitigation of systemic risk is now widely accepted as the fundamental underlying concept for the design of the post-crisis regulatory agenda. Effective mitigation requires...

The report first summarizes the key findings from the following three studies in three provinces (Guizhou, Jilin, Shandong): (a) a demand survey to assess rural ICT access and attitudes; (b) a library study including scoping the status of ICT use in rural libraries; and (c) a limited impact...

Since the late 1990s access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) has seen tremendous growth driven primarily by the wireless technologies and liberalization of telecommunications markets. Mobile communications have evolved from simple voice and text services to diversified...

The case studies focus on specific attempts made by a number of small states to overcome the handicaps of their size and isolation and take advantage of growing opportunities for integration with their neighbors and with the rest of the world. Two policy issues have been of prime importance in...

In 2005, the World Bank Group (WBG) formally introduced the results framework in the country assistant strategy (CASs) as a key tool for improving the quality of the WBG's strategy in borrowing member countries, maximizing the development effectiveness of WBG assistance, and demonstrating...

This book aims to help policy makers take advantage of the opportunities presented by increased cross-border trade in information technology (IT) services and IT-enabled services (ITES). It begins by defining the two industries and estimating the potential global market opportunities for trade...

This book is a compilation of two recently completed works on the convergence of information and communication technology (ICT) (Singh and Raja 2008, 2009). Since then, convergence, the eroding of boundaries among previously separate ICT services, networks, and business practices, has...