Welcome to this month’s World Bank Research E-Newsletter, a monthly summary of research conducted by our department.
At the end of November, we hosted the Fifth IMF-World Bank-WTO Joint Trade Research Workshop. The event highlighted a diverse set of papers on topics that reflect both long-standing questions in trade (e.g. global value chains; preferential trade agreements) as well as questions made more urgent by recent developments around the world (trade and wage inequality; migration). You can find out more by reading a round-up of the research or accessing the papers and presentations.
Later this month we will host our final Policy Research Talk of the year on the topic of Revisiting Economic Geography. Location is a key determinant of welfare—moving from the country to the city or from a poor to a rich country can greatly increase an individual’s returns to labor and access to services. In this talk Senior Urban Economist Uwe Deichmann will revisit the themes of the 2009 World Development Report on Reshaping Economic Geography to provide new insights into the causes and consequences of two key phenomena: urbanization and transport infrastructure. Join us for the live webstream on December 19—a link will be available on the event website.
This month’s newsletter focuses on the theme of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) growth. Recent papers on SME growth examine topics such as the contribution of SMEs to employment in developing countries; the creation of a preferential tax regime in Georgia; psychometric screening for loan applicants; and a business literacy program in Bosnia.
Enjoy!
—Asli
