Human Development - World Bank Research

Featured Research

Strengthening Health Systems for Pandemic Preparedness and Other Emerging Challenges

Cover slide of the Strengthening Health Systems Policy Research Talk

While the world appears to have transitioned out of the COVID-19 pandemic, its impact on society and health systems has been profound. In this talk, World Bank Lead Economist Damien de Walque highlights and discusses some of the lessons learned through this crisis and the response to it. Stressing how beneficial the investments in health—including vaccination—have been during the pandemic, he also places the disruption brought by COVID-19 in perspective with the current evolving burden of diseases in low- and middle-income countries.

Presentation | Video | Event Information | More Research from Damien de Walque

Policy Research Talk, February 6, 2024

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Development Research Group Expert Wins Best Paper Award

World Bank - Tajikistan 30 years of partnership

Oyebola Okunogbe recently won the Best Paper Award from the American Economic Association for her paper “Technology, Taxation, and Corruption” alongside co-author Victor Pouliquen. They use experimental variation to examine the impact of electronic tax filing (to replace in-person submission to tax officials) using data from Tajikistan firms. The pair of researchers find that e-filing reduces the time firms spend on taxes by 40 percent. Further, among firms previously more likely to evade, e-filing doubles taxes paid.

Technology, Taxation, and Corruption: Evidence from the Introduction of Electronic Tax Filing | Twitter Post | Feature Story | Policy Research Talk | More Research from Oyebola Okunogbe

Award Announcement, January 2024

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Pensions and Informality

Twitter postcard for Pensions and Informality Policy Research Talk

The combined forces of increased longevity, lower fertility, and weakening risk-sharing networks make financing the future consumption and wellbeing of the elderly population a major concern globally. In this Policy Research Talk, World Bank Research Economist Clément Joubert discussed how his and others' research informs pension policy design in high-informality settings. The presentation will focus on three questions: (i) What disincentives for formal work are embedded in pension programs? (ii) Where do gender disparities in pension benefits originate and how can they be reduced? (iii) Can workers in the informal economy afford to participate in voluntary pension schemes?

Feature Story | Video | Presentation | Life Cycle Savings in a High-Informality Setting—Evidence from Pakistan | More about Clément Joubert

Policy Research Talk, October 20, 2022

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Improving Effective Coverage in Health: Do Financial Incentives Work?

Financial incentives and performance pay to frontline health facilities and workers have gained popularity as an innovative approach to confront the challenge of poor health outcomes in low-income countries. In this talk$% report lead authors Damien de Walque and Eeshani Kandpal review evidence on the impacts of PBF on health service delivery spanning fifteen years and nearly forty countries with a particular emphasis on the quality of service delivery.

Cover of the Improving Effective Coverage in Health: Do Financial Incentives Work? report

Financial incentives and performance pay to frontline health facilities and workers have gained popularity as an innovative approach to confront the challenge of poor health outcomes in low-income countries. In this talk, report lead authors Damien de Walque and Eeshani Kandpal review evidence on the impacts of PBF on health service delivery spanning fifteen years and nearly forty countries with a particular emphasis on the quality of service delivery.

Feature Story | Video | Presentation | Event Information | More about Damien de Walque |

More about Eeshani Kandpal

Policy Research Report Launch, May 11, 2022

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Delving Into Women’s Social Isolation

S Anukriti is an Economist in the Development Research Group (Human Development Team) of the World Bank. In this Feature Story, S Anukriti answers questions about her research, interests, and more.

Feature Story | Son Preference Blog Post | Dowry in Rural India Blog Post | More about S Anukriti

Feature Story, March 21, 2022

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The Promise and Limitations of Technology for Tax Mobilization

At a recent Policy Research Talk, World Bank economist Oyebola Okunogbe shared findings from two studies on the potential of technology to transform three core tax administration functions: identifying the tax base, reducing compliance costs, and monitoring compliance.

Feature Story | Video | Presentation | Event Information | More about Oyebola Okunogbe

Policy Research Talk, November 16, 2021

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BOOKS AND REPORTS

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women-Led Businesses

The COVID-19 pandemic has struck businesses across the globe with unprecedented impacts. The world economy has been hit hard and firms have experienced a myriad of challenges, but these challenges have been heterogeneous across firms. This paper examines one important dimension of this heterogeneity: the differential effect of the pandemic on women-led and men-led businesses.

Jesica Torres, Franklin Maduko, Isis Gaddis, Leonardo Iacovone, and Kathleen Beegle, March 2023

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Promoting national integration through national service programmes: Evidence from Nigeria’s National Youth Service Corps

This book presents a synthesis of key recent advances in political-economy research on the various approaches and strategies used in the process of building nations throughout modern history. It features chapters written by leading scholars who describe the findings of their quantitative analyses of the risks and benefits of different nation-building policies.

Oyebola Okunogbe, February 2023

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Improving Effective Coverage in Health: Do Financial Incentives Work?

Cover of the Improving Effective Coverage in Health: Do Financial Incentives Work? report

Improving Effective Coverage in Health: Do Financial Incentives Work? examines one specific policy approach to improving effective coverage: financial incentives in the form of performance-based financing (PBF), a package reform that typically includes performance pay to frontline health workers as well as facility autonomy, transparency, and community engagement.

Damien de Walque, Eeshani Kandpal, Adam Wagstaff, May 2022

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Reshaping Social Norms about Gender: A New Way Forward

Blue postcard with text Reshaping Social Norms about Gender: A New Way Forward and has five face images of panel

Despite decades of rapid economic growth, rising education, and declining fertility, women in South Asia continue to face greater disadvantages in accessing economic opportunities than in most of the developing world. A key objective of this chapter is to focus the attention of research and policymaking on social norms, not to claim that social norms are the only, or the most important factor hindering the path towards gender equality in South Asia.

S Anukriti, Maurizio Bussolo, Ana Maria Munoz Boudet, April 2022

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State of the Mashreq Women Flagship: Who Cares? - Care Work and Women’s Labor Market Outcomes in Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon

Female labor force participation in the Mashreq is exceptionally low, particularly among mothers with young children. The second State of the Mashreq Women Report: Who Cares? Care Work and Women’s Labor Market Outcomes in Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon examines the potential for care policies to support greater female labor force participation.

Silvia Redaelli, S Anukriti, February 2022

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The Fast Track to New Skills: Short-Cycle Higher Education Programs in Latin America and the Caribbean

The economic crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated underlying trends, such as automation, the use of electronic platforms, and the need for lifelong learning. Addressing these demands requires the urgent upskilling and reskilling of the population. The report explores the labor market outcomes and returns of Short-Cycle Higher Education Programs, examines their providers, and identifies the practices adopted by the best programs.

María Marta Ferreyra, Lelys Dinarte Díaz, Sergio Urzúa, Marina Bassi, January 2021

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Handbook on Using Administrative Data for Research and Evidence-based Policy

Handbook on Using Administrative Data for Research and Evidence based Policy

The Handbook serves as a go-to reference for researchers seeking to use administrative data and for data providers looking to make their data accessible for research. It provides information, best practices, and case studies on how to create privacy-protected access to, handle, and analyze administrative data, with the aim of pushing the research frontier as well as informing evidence-based policy innovations.

Edited by Shawn Cole, Iqbal Dhaliwal, Anja Sautmann, Lars Vilhuber, 2021

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Overconfident: How Economic and Health Fault Lines Left the Middle East and North Africa Ill-Prepared to Face COVID-19

This report examines the region’s economic prospects in 2021, forecasting that the recovery will be both tenuous and uneven as per capita GDP level stays below pre-pandemic levels. It points out that the region’s health systems were ill-prepared for the pandemic, and suffered from over-confidence, as authorities painted an overly optimistic picture in self-assessments of health system preparedness. Going forward, governments must improve data transparency and undertake reforms to remedy historical underinvestment in public health systems.

Roberta V. Gatti, Daniel Lederman, Yuting Fan, Arian Hatefi, Ha Nguyen, Anja Sautmann, Joseph Martin Sax, Christina A. Wood, October 2021

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World Development Report 2018: Learning to Realize Education’s Promise

The World Development Report 2018 is the first ever devoted entirely to education. And the timing is excellent: education has long been critical to human welfare, but it is even more so in a time of rapid economic and social change.

January 2018

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