Research and Publications

The fourth edition of Global Findex - the world's most comprehensive database on financial inclusion - offers a lens into how people accessed and used financial services during COVID-19, when mobility restrictions and health policies drove increased demand for digital services of all kinds. Published every three years since 2011, Findex is the only global demand-side data source allowing for global and regional cross-country analysis to provide a rigorous and multidimensional picture of how adults save, borrow, make payments, and manage financial risks. The Global Findex is an indispensable resource for financial service practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and development professionals.

Regardless of the poverty line used, the speed and scale of China’s poverty reduction are historically unprecedented. However, a significant number of people remain vulnerable, with incomes below a threshold more typically used to define poverty in upper-middle-income countries. Four Decades of Poverty Reduction in China: Drivers, Insights for the World, and the Way Ahead explores the key drivers of China’s poverty alleviation achievements and considers the lessons of China’s experience for other developing countries. The report also makes suggestions for China’s future policies.

The COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis was a reminder, if any were needed, that criminal creativity thrives in times of chaos, exploiting people’s fears. Unsafe face masks, counterfeit drugs, and suspect medical equipment flooded the market, touted as miracle cures against the coronavirus by unscrupulous actors wanting to turn a quick profit. Companies with no record in health won big government contracts and, as people’s situation deteriorated, organized crime stepped in to lend a “helping hand” to those suffering financial distress. Where most people saw a global public health and economic crisis, criminals saw an opportunity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the upsides and downsides of international trade in medical goods and services. Open trade can increase access to medical services and goods (and the critical inputs needed to manufacture them), improve quality and variety, and reduce costs. But excessive concentration of production, restrictive trade policies, supply chain disruptions, and regulatory divergence can jeopardize the ability of public health systems to respond to pandemics and other health crises. This report, coordinated by Nadia Rocha and Michele Ruta at the World Bank and Marc Bacchetta and Joscelyn Magdeleine at the WTO, provides new data on trade in medical goods and services and medical value chains; surveys the evolving policy landscape before and during the pandemic; and proposes an action plan to improve trade policies and deepen international cooperation to deal with future pandemics.

Growth in most countries in the East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) region rebounded in the first half of 2022, but China lost momentum. In much of the region, domestic demand revived after the distress of the COVID-19 Delta wave. In China, the public health measures to contain outbreaks of the highly infectious Omicron variant inhibited consumption. Most of the region is projected to grow faster and have lower inflation in 2022 than other regions. Beyond the end of 2022, three factors could be a drag on growth: global deceleration, rising debt, and policy distortions. Current measures to contain inflation and debt are adding to existing distortions in the markets for food, fuel and finance in ways that could hurt growth. In each case, more efficient measures could address current difficulties without undermining longer-term objectives.

International economic integration offers unexploited opportunities to Latin America and the Caribbean. This report studies how the region’s countries can leverage trade agreements to promote their economies’ participation in global value chains (GVCs).The gaps between potential and actual GVC integration follow from the region’s Economic fundamentals, such as geography, market size, institutions, and factor endowments. But policy choices matter as well. The report, based on new data and evidence, shows that trade agreements can drive policy reforms and help the region overcome some of its disadvantageous fundamentals.