Finance & Private Sector Development

A well-functioning financial system and a vigorous private sector are important drivers of growth and poverty reduction. Finance is central to private sector development and vice versa, and large parts of both sub-disciplines revolve around the behavior and performance of firms.

Featured

The Global Findex Database 2021: Financial Inclusion, Digital Payments, and Resilience in the Age of COVID-19
Global Database, June 2022
Financial inclusion is a cornerstone of development, and since 2011, the Global Findex Database has been the definitive source of data on global access to financial services from payments to savings and borrowing. The 2021 edition, based on nationally representative surveys of over 125,000 adults in 123 economies during the COVID-19 pandemic, contains updated indicators on access to and use of formal and informal financial services and digital payments, and offers insights into the behaviors that enable financial resilience.
The Global Findex Database 2021 | Blog Post | Video | Press Release | Download Report | Executive Summary
World Development Report 2022: Finance for an Equitable Recovery
Flagship Report, March 2022
This report examines the central role of finance in the economic recovery from COVID-19. Based on an in-depth look at the consequences of the crisis most likely to affect low- and middle-income economies, it advocates a set of policies and measures to mitigate the interconnected economic risks stemming from the pandemic, risks that may become more acute as stimulus measures are withdrawn at both the domestic and global levels.
World Development Report 2022 | Launch Event | Report Overview | Video
Data from Secondary Markets: Insights and Implications for Development
Policy Research Talk, March 22, 2022
Since the Great Recession cross-border financial assets have grown nearly 60 percent. While cross-border bank lending has stayed relatively constant, cross-border portfolios and market-based finance have grown tremendously. In this talk, World Bank economist Alvaro Pedraza sheds light on this pressing issue with recent insights from the Colombian Stock Exchange (CSE).
Video | Presentation | Event Page | More About Alvaro Pedraza
World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives—Research Directions and Measuring Country Capacity
Policy Research Talk, May 25, 2021
In this Policy Research Talk, members of the report team illustrate the potential to combine private and public intent data to yield timelier, more granular insights to confront policy challenges, as well as research findings from data quality experiments and assessments. The team presents new data sources released in conjunction with the report.
Event Information | Video | Presentation (Part 1 & 2) | Presentation (Part 3) | World Development 2021: Data for Better Lives

LATEST WORKING PAPERS

The Long-Term Impact of High School Financial Education: Evidence from Brazil
Miriam Bruhn, Gabriel Garber, Sergio Koyama, Bilal Zia
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 10131, July 2022

How Binding Is Supervisory Guidance Evidence from the European Calendar Provisioning
Franco Fiordelisi, Gabriele Lattanzio, Davide S. Mare
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 10050, May 2022

Firm Resources, Strategies, and Survival and Growth during COVID-19: Evidence from Two-Wave Global Surveys
Sheng Fang, Chorching Goh, Shaomin Li, L. Colin Xu
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 9997, April 2022

Can Business Grants Mitigate a Crisis? Evidence from Youth Entrepreneurs in Kenya during COVID-19
Yanina Domenella, Julian C. Jamison, Abla Safir, Bilal Zia
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 9874, December 2021

More Working Papers

LATEST JOURNAL ARTICLES

Mission and the Bottom Line: Performance Incentives in a Multigoal Organization
Xavier Gine, Ghazala Mansuri, Slesh Shrestha
Review of Economics and Statistics 104 (4): 748–763, July 2022

Aspirations and Financial Decisions: Experimental Evidence from the Philippines
David McKenzie, Aakash Mohpal, Dean Yang
Journal of Development Economics, vol. 156, May 2022 | Working Paper Version

Financial (Dis-)information: Evidence from a Multi-country Audit Study
Xavier Gine, Rafael Keenan Mazer
Journal of Public Economics vol. 208: 104618, April 2022

Improving Business Practices and the Boundary of the Entrepreneur: A Randomized Experiment Comparing Training, Consulting, Insourcing, and Outsourcing
Stephen J. Anderson and David McKenzie
Journal of Political Economy vol. 130 (1), January 2022 | Working Paper Version

The Interplay of Policy and Institutions during COVID-19
Sheng Fang, Mike W. Peng, L. Colin Xu, Yuanyuan Yi
The International Trade Journal vol. 35 (6), September 2021 | Working Paper Version

BOOKS AND REPORTS

World Development Report 2022: Finance for an Equitable Recovery
World Development Report 2022: Finance for an Equitable Recovery examines the central role of finance in the economic recovery from the pandemic.

The Global Findex Database 2021: Financial Inclusion, Digital Payments, and Resilience in the Age of COVID-19
The 2021 edition of the Global Findex Database contains updated indicators on access to and use of formal and informal financial services and digital payments, and offers insights into the behaviors that enable financial resilience.

World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives
This report explores the tremendous potential of the changing data landscape to improve the lives of poor people, while also acknowledging its potential to open back doors that can harm individuals, businesses, and societies.