Increasing State Capacity: What Role for the World Bank

The World Bank and public sector management: what next?

The new World Bank strategy on Public Sector Management (PSM) has to be judged against the magnitude of the problems it faces. Two of these are what to do about failed and failing states and what to do about the stagnation of progress in ‘flailing’ states. On both of these fronts the gap between what the world of action wants – an implementable action plan to tackle tough problems like Afghanis...

The Role of the World Bank in Middle Income Countries

This paper establishes some general principles of the rationale for development assistance in Middle Income Countries and then applies these principles to the operations of the World Bank. It then puts the argument through its paces for the specific case of India, which has just transitioned into middle income status. The main conclusions are as follows. Whether or not IBRD is “development assi...

The World Bank

Welcome to the 42nd issue of the World Bank Trade Research Electronic Newsletter, a periodic E-mail publication containing abstracts of recent trade working papers, publications and other works. Additional information on the Bank’s Trade Research Team activities can be found on the recent redesigned World Bank Trade Research website (HUhttp://www.econ.worldbank.org/programs/tradeUH). This provi...

The World Bank

What Is the Role of Reserve Capacity?

A robust, linear association between socioeconomic status (SES) and health has been identified across many populations and health outcomes. This relationship is typically monotonic, so that each step down the SES hierarchy brings increased vulnerability to disease and premature mortality. Despite growing attention to health disparities, scientists and policymakers have made little progress towa...