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

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
Bank Lending for Inclusive Growth: Incentives Matter

Policy Research Talk, November 2020
World Bank economist Claudia Ruiz-Ortega discussed access to novel datasets from banks, credit bureaus, and credit registries that help us better understand the dynamics of bank lending and the intended (and unintended) effects of public policies affecting banks drawing on research in Mexico, Peru, and Brazil.
Presentation | Video | Event information | Policy Research Talks | More about Claudia Ruiz
Policies for Small and Informal Firms
eSeminar on Development Policy and Covid-19, April 9, 2020
Leonardo Iacovone, Lead Economist (World Bank), Santiago Levy, Senior Fellow (The Brookings Institution), Miriam Bruhn, Senior Economist (World Bank) discussed policy options to aid small and informal firms, drawing on lessons from past crisis experiences. Timestamps: 3:15 - Iacovone; 19:25 - Levy; 33:00 - Bruhn; 49:30 - Discussion and Q&A
Video | Documents | Development Policy and Covid-19 Series | More about Miriam Bruhn

LATEST WORKING PAPERS

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

Competition and Firm Recovery Post-COVID-19
Miriam Bruhn, Asli Demirguc-Kunt, Dorothe Singer
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 9851, November 2021

Changing Perceptions of Institutions and Standard of Living in Iraq
Saniya Ansar, Bledi Celiku, Leora Klapper, Wael Mansour
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 9773, September 2021

The Anatomy of Index Rebalancings: Evidence from Transaction Data
Mariana Escobar, Lorenzo Pandolfi, Alvaro Pedraza, Tomas Williams
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 9770, September 2021

More Working Papers

LATEST JOURNAL ARTICLES

Borrower leakage from costly screening: Evidence from SME lending in Peru
Irani Arráiz, Miriam Bruhn, Benjamin N. Roth, Claudia Ruiz-Ortega, Rodolfo Stucchiae
Journal of Development Economics 153: 102719, November 2021 | Working Paper Version

Enforcing government policies: The role of state-owned enterprise in China’s one child policy
Hua Cheng, Yuan yuan Ma, Shusen Qi, Lixin Colin Xu
World Development 146: 105574, October 2021

Estimating Treatment Effects with Big Data When Take-up is Low: An Application to Financial Education
Gabriel Lara Ibarra, David McKenzie, Claudia Ruiz-Ortega
The World Bank Economic Review 35(2): 348-375, May 2021 | Working Paper Version | Brief

Improving Management with Individual and Group-Based Consulting: Results from a Randomized Experiment in Colombia
Leonardo Iacovone, William Maloney, David McKenzie
The Review of Economic Studies, rdab005, February 25, 2021 | 2-page summary, Development Impact post, VoxDev post replication data, Visible Hand podcast

BOOKS AND REPORTS

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.

Global Financial Development Report 2019 / 2020: Bank Regulation and Supervision a Decade after the Global Financial Crisis
Drawing on 10 years of data and analysis, the 5th edition of the report reflects on the causes of the crisis and the regulatory remedies adopted to prevent future financial troubles.

Report | Video | Dataset | Blog | Previous Reports

The Global Findex Database 2017: Measuring Financial Inclusion and the Fintech Revolution

The Global Findex database is the world’s most comprehensive data set on how adults save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. Globally, 69 percent of adults – 3.8 billion people – now have an account at a bank or mobile money provider, a crucial step in escaping poverty.
Website | Video | Press Release