Prospects Group

Accelerating Investment: Challenges and Policies

This book presents the World Bank’s most comprehensive assessment of investment in emerging and developing economies. It examines why investment matters, why it has stalled, and what it will take to revive it.

Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations

This study finds that conflict and instability are taking a devastating toll on the 39 economies afflicted by them, driving up extreme poverty faster than anywhere else, intensifying acute hunger, and pushing key ...

Foreign Direct Investment in Retreat

Foreign direct investment has weakened since the global financial crisis, heightening the challenges of filling vast infrastructure gaps, reducing poverty, creating new jobs, and addressing climate change. This study ...

Fiscal Vulnerabilities in Low-Income Countries

This study constitutes the first systematic assessment of the causes of chronic fiscal weakness in the very poorest economies—those with annual per capita incomes of less than $1,145 a year.

The Great Reversal

This book offers the first comprehensive look at the opportunities and risks confronting the 75 countries eligible for grants and zero to low-interest loans from the World Bank’s International Development Association.

Falling Long-Term Growth Prospects

This book presents the first detailed analysis of a worldwide slowdown in structural growth. At current trends, the global potential growth rate is expected to fall to a three-decade low over the remainder of the 2020s.

Commodity Markets: Evolution, Challenges, and Policies

This study is the first comprehensive analysis examining market and policy developments for all commodity groups, including energy, metals, and agriculture, over the past century.

The Long Shadow of Informality: Challenges and Policies

This study is the first comprehensive analysis of the extent of informality and its implications for a durable economic recovery and for long-term development.

Global Productivity: Trends, Drivers, and Policies

This book presents the first comprehensive analysis of the evolution and drivers of productivity growth, examines the effects of COVID-19 on productivity, and discusses a wide-range of policy options.

Global Waves of Debt

This book presents the first in-depth analysis of the main features of global and national debt accumulation episodes, analyzes the linkages between debt accumulation and financial crises, and draws policy lessons.

A Decade After the Global Recession

This book provides the first comprehensive stock-taking of the decade since the global recession from the perspective of emerging market and developing economies.

Inflation in Emerging and Developing Economies

The book provides the first comprehensive and systematic analysis of inflation in emerging market and developing economies.