This report documents cross-country findings from analysis conducted by World Bank staff working on Jobs Diagnostics. It identifies some key insights for policy makers to take into account when designing policies and programs for inclusive growth. The findings are drawn from three different...

A Jobs diagnostic is the first analytic step in an operational framework designed to help countries achieve inclusive economic growth through faster growth in labor incomes. Created for IDA countries under IDA17, its purpose is to guide policy makers and development practitioners in the design...

This paper proposes a new measure of public expenditure force that policy makers and budget analysts should track in detail over time in routine fiscal monitoring. The paper suggests that adopting the measure will not only warn policy makers of possible impending fiscal pressures, but will help...

One of the world's most youthful countries, Zambia's economy has been booming since the early 2000s on the back of record high copper prices and private sector investment response to the better business environment. But poverty rose from 2010 to 2015 and remains very high in rural areas....

The authors show that for China the movement of more people into better jobs with higher incomes formed a very important explanation for the country's long-term success in growth and poverty reduction. China's exporting cities created a virtuous cycle of new wage-employment-creating investments...

Based on extensive data collection in Uganda, this paper demonstrates that the rural access index, as defined today, should not be a government objective because the benefit of such investment is minimal, whereas achieving rural accessibility at less than 2 kilometers would require massive...

The economy of Moldova, which has one of the lowest levels of gross national income per capita in the World Bank Europe and Central Asia region, is strongly linked to the outside world, especially to the neighboring countries of the European Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States. This...