The Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) brings fresh, innovative perspectives to key problems of development. By providing a forum in which policy makers, academics and leading researchers focus on a common theme, ABCDE plays an important role in advancing debate and shaping...

The Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) is a leading forum for advanced, forward-looking research on important development issues. Each year, the ABCDE brings policy makers and politicians together with researchers from academe, international organizations, and think...

This paper provides an historical overview of both the evolution of the economic performance of the developing world and the evolution of economic thought on development policy. The 20th century was broadly characterized by divergence between high-income countries and the developing world, with...

China's government economic stimulus package in 2008-09 appears to have worked well. It seems to have been about the right size, included a number of appropriate components, and was well timed. Its subnational component was designed to maximize the impact of the stimulus package on the economy...

This paper discusses the causes of the middle-income trap in Latin America and the Caribbean, identifies the challenges and opportunities for Latin America that come from China's rise, and draws lessons from New Structural Economics and the Growth Identification and Facilitation Framework to...

Active economic policies by developing countries’ governments to promote growth and industrialization have generally been viewed with suspicion by economists, and for good reasons: past experiences show that such policies have too often failed to achieve their stated objectives. But the...

Biographical note: Justin Yifu Lin is founding director and professor at the China Centre for Economic Research at Peking University. From 2008 to 2012, he served as chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank. His many books include "Demystifying the Chinese Economy" and...

Each institutional arrangement in a financial system has both advantages and disadvantages in mobilizing savings, allocating capital, diversifying risks, and processing information when facilitating financial transactions. Meanwhile, the factor endowment in an economy at each stage of its...

As strategies for achieving sustainable growth in developing countries are re-examined in light of the financial crisis, it is critical to take into account structural change and its corollary, industrial upgrading. Economic literature has devoted a great deal of attention to the analysis of...