This paper presents a skills index for developing countries in Asia as a first step toward developing a Global Skills Index. The Asian Skills Index is roughly modeled on the European Skills Index for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. However, the Asian Skills...

This paper reviews the debate opposing the absolute and relative approaches to monetary poverty measurement. The arguments for combining both approaches into a single "overall” monetary poverty measure are introduced. The most salient proposals of hybrid poverty lines are presented. Then, the...

Plastics have been a development driver for decades but have turned into a development problem due to their omnipresence in the environment. Marine litter and plastic pollution have attracted much attention and commitments from governments and the private sector alike in the past few years....

This paper studies how the opening of a Million Dollar Plant (MDP) affects income inequality, by focusing on a new mechanism: retail inflation. Using detailed barcode-level prices, the paper shows that local barcode-level prices increased in winning counties compared to runner up counties after...

This policy brief highlights the key messages for policy makers from the World Bank report "Seeing the Invisible: A Strategic Report on Groundwater Quality" (Ravenscroft and Lytton 2022a). This report and “A Practical Manual on Groundwater Quality Monitoring" (Ravenscroft and Lytton 2022b)...