Welcome to this month’s World Bank Research E-Newsletter, a monthly summary of research conducted by our department.
Earlier this month, donors met in Myanmar to discuss the replenishment of the International Development Association (IDA), the arm of the World Bank that helps the world’s poorest countries. As the principal research department within the World Bank, we play a key role in filling the ‘research gap’ on the poorest countries on topics that range from adapting to climate change, ensuring women’s ability to participate in the labor force, to promoting good governance in fragile states. Interested readers can view a collection of more than 100 papers on IDA countries produced in the last three years at Research Resources for IDA18 and also access a special edition of the Research Digest focused on IDA countries.
Informality is one of the most difficult challenges facing developing countries, and not surprisingly, it’s often at the top of policymakers’ priorities. Yet, there is confusion on basic definitions and the measurement of informality, let alone its causes and consequences. In our Policy Research Talk this month, Lead Economist Norman Loayza drew on decades of research to provide a framework for the definition, determinants, and consequences of informality. He highlighted the unavoidable trade-offs between formality and informality and presented projections for the size of labor informality over the next two decades. Finally, he unveiled a new toolkit that development practitioners inside and outside the World Bank can use to undertake their own analysis and projections of labor informality. If you missed Norman’s talk, you can still watch a recording or download his presentation.
In this month’s newsletter you can also read about the evolution of income disparities after the end of apartheid in South Africa; the psychological burden of reconciliation in Sierre Leone; risk aversion following post-election conflict in Kenya; and much more.
Happy Reading!
—Asli
