What major insights have emerged from development economics in the past decade, and how do they matter for the World Bank? This challenging question was recently posed by World Bank Group President David Malpass to the staff of the Development Research Group. This paper assembles a set of 13...

How does adaptive implementation work in practice? Drawing on extensive interviews and observations, this paper contrasts the ways in which an adaptive component of a major health care project was implemented in three program and three matched comparison states in Nigeria. The paper examines the...

Malawi can be understood as a microcosm of institutional reform approaches in developing countries more broadly. A common feature of such approaches, whether implemented by government or donors, is reform initiatives that yield institutions that "look like" those found in higher-performing...

This paper presents the initial findings from six rounds of research conducted between 2012 and 2016 on livelihoods and social change in rural Myanmar, undertaken as part of the Qualitative Social and Economic Monitoring initiative. These data provide unique insights into the ways in which broad...

This paper combines theory with data from different domains to provide an empirical analysis of the scale and variability of social capital as wealth. The analysis is used to argue, given what has been learned from the literature on social capital, that the welfare returns to investing in trust...

The clear development gains achieved in recent decades should not deflect attention from the scale and type of challenges that remain. The strategies largely responsible for these initial gains have been technical reforms promoting economic growth and logistical systems supplying basic inputs....

Incorporating qualitative methods into the evaluation of development programs has become increasingly popular in recent years, both for the distinctive insights such approaches can bring in their own right and because of their capacity to complement the strengths -- and where necessary correct...

Whether in the domains of scholarship or practice, important advances have been made in recent years in our understanding of how culture, politics, and development interact. Today s leading theorists of culture and development represent a fourth distinctive perspective vis-à-vis their...

Social cohesion - that is, the inclusiveness of a country's communities - is essential for generating the trust needed to implement reforms. Citizens have to trust that the short-term losses that inevitably arise from reform, will be more than offset by long-term gains. However, in countries...