Social media beyond entertainment
Social media has flourished with increasing digital connectivity. Internet users in the Philippines, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and the United Arab Emirates spend more than 3 hours per day on social...
View ArticleBuilding a more resilient caribbean to natural disasters and climate change
The blog draws on joint ongoing and published work with several IMF staff, including Leo Bonato, Aliona Cebotari, Julian Chow, Alejandro Guerson, Franz Loyola, Sònia Muñoz, Uma Ramakrishnan, Ippei...
View ArticleTo the Data Day skeptics
As I wondered which of the many fascinating ideas from the World Bank’s inaugural annual Data Day to recap in a blog, it occurred to me that there was likely selection bias in those who chose to...
View ArticleRoads through tough places: Using remote sensing for impact evaluations of...
Over the last twenty years, impact evaluations have dramatically expanded the body of evidence about which types of development programs work, when, and why, but their application has been heavily...
View ArticleValuing user data
The rising threat of digital taxes across the world, most recently in New Zealand, is raising the stakes to reform the international corporate tax system. In February 2019, the OECD outlined four...
View ArticleBuffering rural producer associations against financial setbacks – Evidence...
Poverty in Brazil is disproportionately concentrated in rural areas. Although rural households account for only 15% of the population, 45% of them fall within the nation’s poorest quartile. A large...
View ArticleWe want to hear from you about the World Development Report 2020 — Global...
Last month I announced that the 2020 World Development Report (WDR2020) will focus on global value chains (GVCs) and what they mean for development. Does participating in GVCs promote development? Why...
View ArticleCommodity prices rose modestly in February–Pink Sheet
Energy commodity prices increased nearly 5 percent in February, led by oil (+8 percent), the World Bank’s Pink Sheet reported.Non-energy prices gained 2 percent, in response to large price increases in...
View ArticleProcess makes perfect: improving tax compliance and tax administration...
To a United States citizen, the Internal Revenue Services (IRS) might seem like the La Llorona -the Spanish-speaker’s response to the Boogeyman -of public administration. They come after those of us...
View ArticleWhy we need a research department
After a brief hiatus, the office of the Chief Economist of the World Bank Group was reunited last week with DEC, the well-known Research Department of the World Bank. This led me to reflect on a...
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