Sustainability and Infrastructure

Lasting poverty reduction requires sustainable natural resource management as well as infrastructure development. This research program encompasses energy, environment, land, agriculture, water, climate change, biodiversity, and urbanization.

Featured Research

Sustainable Cities Must Become Central to Climate Change Strategies
Feature Story, 2023
Approximately 56 percent of the world’s population—or 4.4 billion individuals—lives in a city. The growth of cities is expected to continue, with the urban population more than doubling its current size by 2050. Following a three-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Research Conference series returned earlier this year for its 7th iteration.
7th Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Research Conference | More research by Harris Selod
GHG Tracking & Mitigation with Satellite Data
Datasets and Research, May 2023
Reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs) is urgently required to mitigate climate change. Steep emissions reductions will be needed to keep global warming below 1.5°C. While countries around the world have pledged to curb both carbon and methane emissions—two of the most significant GHGs—many nations do not have the infrastructure to adequately track their emissions. To fill this gap, the World Bank has rolled out major new datasets, tools, and research using satellite data to make frequently updated GHG emission data easily accessible to the general public.
Carbon Dioxide Dataset | Methane Dataset | Presentation to NASA | NASA Presentation Participants | Resources | More research by Susmita Dasgupta
Land Matters: Can Better Governance and Management of Scarcity Prevent a Looming Crisis in the Middle East and North Africa?
Report, 2023
Across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, land is a scarce and valuable resource. The projected increase in land demand due to demographic trends, coupled with decreasing land supply due to climatic and governance factors, indicate a looming crisis happening at a time when the region is also facing dramatic social and political transformation. This report identifies and analyzes the economic, environmental, and social challenges associated with land in MENA countries, shedding light on policy options to address them.
More research by Harris Selod
Local and Global Economic Impacts of the War in Ukraine
Policy Research Talk, December 2022
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has had far-reaching consequences for human wellbeing, first and foremost for the citizens of Ukraine, but also for the world at large. Quantifying the costs of war is a challenging undertaking, given the lack of reliable data as well as the difficulty of capturing the complex welfare effects of war with typical indicators like GDP. In this Policy Research Talk, three World Bank researchers - Erhan Artuc, Klaus Deininger, and Bob Rijkers - rely on inventive methods and sources of data to paint a more complete picture of the appalling costs of war.
Presentation | Working Paper | More research by Klaus Deininger
Land Research, Data, and Policy Insights
Land is at the center of many of the world's pressing challenges. The World Bank's Development Research Group is generating new insights into how countries can reform their land policies to effectively tackle rural poverty, rapid urbanization, equity, and environmental degradation.
Land Governance Assessment Framework

LATEST WORKING PAPERS

This section highlights a few recent working papers. For a full list of working papers, please see: More Working Papers

Air Pollution Reduces Economic Activity: Evidence from India
A. Patrick Behrer, Rishabh Choudhary, Dhruv Sharma
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 10515, June 2023

Who Should Drive Green Technology Transitions in Developing Countries: State-Owned Enterprises versus Private Firms
Prudence Dato, Frank Krysiak, Christian Nolde, Govinda R. Timilsina
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 10506, June 2023

Natural Disaster, Infrastructure, and Income Distribution: Empirical Evidence from Global Data
Ze Song, Gal Hochman, Govinda Timilsina
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 10504, June 2023

Over-Drilling: Local Externalities and the Social Cost of Electricity Subsidies in South India
Jesus Bueren, Xavier Giné, Hanan G. Jacoby, Pedro Mira
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 10508, June 2023

Psychology, Skills, or Cash? Evidence on Complementary Investments for Anti-Poverty Programs
Megan Lang, Edward Soule, Catherine H. Tinsley
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 10503, June 2023

LATEST JOURNAL ARTICLES

Subways and CO2 emissions: A global analysis with satellite data
Susmita Dasgupta, Somik Lall, David Wheeler
Science of The Total Environment, vol. 883, July 2023

Child Health Implications of Plastic Waste Reduction in West Africa
Susmita Dasgupta, Maria Sarraf, David Wheeler
Journal of Management and Sustainability, vol. 13 (1), July 2023

Intensity-Based Rebating of Emission Pricing Revenues
Christoph Böhringer, Carolyn Fischer, Nicholas Rivers
Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 10, July 2023

Subsidy removal, regional trade and CO2 mitigation in the electricity sector in the Middle East and North Africa region
Govinda Timilsina, Ilka Fabiana Deluque Curiel
Energy Policy, vol. 177, June 2023

Tax, kill or bill: An analysis of unilateral CO2 price floor options in multilateral emissions trading systems
Christoph Böhringer, Carolyn Fischer
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, vol. 119, May 2023

Efficient Irrigation and Water Conservation: Evidence from South India
Ram Fishman, Xavier Gine, Hanan G. Jacoby
Journal of Development Economics, vol. 162, May 2023

Revisiting Poverty Trends and the Role of Social Protection Systems in Africa during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Kibrom A Abay, Nishant Yonzan, Sikandra Kurdi, Kibrom Tafere
Journal of African Economies, vol. 32, issue supplement 2, April 2023

Physical infrastructure and economic growth
Govinda Timilsina, David I. Stern, Debasish K. Das
Applied Economics, March 2023

Quantifying War-Induced Crop Losses in Ukraine in Near Real Time to Strengthen Local and Global Food Security
Klaus Deininger, Daniel Ayalew Ali, Nataliia Kussul, Andrii Shelestov, Guido Lemoine, Hanna Yailimova
Food Policy, vol. 115, February 2023

How Valuable is the Reliability of Residential Electricity Supply in Low-Income Countries? Evidence from Nepal
Anna Alberini, Jevgenijs Steinbuks, Govinda Timilsina
The Energy Journal, vol. 43, no. 4, 2023

Do Investments in Clean Technologies Reduce Production Costs? Insights from the Literature
Govinda Timilsina, Sunil Malla
Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, vol. 12, January 2023

COVID-19 and Food Security in Ethiopia: Do Social Protection Programs Protect?
Kibrom A. Abay, Guush Berhane, John Hoddinott, Kibrom Tafere
Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. 71, January 2023

Factors Driving Aggregate Service Sector Energy Intensities in Asia and Eastern Europe: A LMDI Analysis
Jianda Wang, Kangyin Dong, Gal Hochman, Govinda R. Timilsina
Energy Policy vol. 172, January 2023

Carbon Taxes
Govinda R. Timilsina
Journal of Economic Literature vol. 60, issue 4, December 2022

Island area changes in the Sundarban region of the abandoned western Ganga–Brahmaputra–Meghna Delta, India and Bangladesh
Sunando Bandyopadhyay, Nabendu Sekhar Kar, Susmita Dasgupta, Dipanwita Mukherjee, Abhijit Das
Geomorphology 108482, October 8, 2022

Structural Transformation of the Agricultural Sector In Low- and Middle-Income Economies
Klaus Deininger, Songqing Jin, Meilin Ma
Annual Review of Resource Economics vol. 14, October 2022

Sub-sampling a Large Physical Soil Archive for Additional Analyses to Support Spatial Mapping; A Pre-registered Experiment in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region (SNNPR) of Ethiopia
Robel Alemu, Aweke Gelaw, Dawd Gashu, Kibrom Tafere, Abdul Mossa, Elizabeth Bailey, William Masters, Martin Broadley, Murray Lark
Geoderma vol. 424, October 2022

The economics of deploying distributed solar photovoltaics in developing countries: Some insights from an analysis for Bangladesh
Govinda R. Timilsina
Energy for Sustainable Development, vol. 70, October 2022

Institutional determinants of large land-based investments’ performance in Zambia: Does title enhance productivity and structural transformation?
Daniel Ayalew Ali, Klaus Deininger
World Development vol. 157, September 2022

Plastic Waste Cleanup Priorities to Reduce Marine Pollution: A Spatiotemporal Analysis for Accra and Lagos with Satellite Data
Susmita Dasgupta, Maria Sarraf, David Wheeler
Science of The Total Environment vol. 839, September 2022

Books and Reports

Carbon Pricing Around the World
Joseph Pryor, Paolo Agnolucci, Carolyn Fischer, Dirk Heine, Mariza Montes de Oca Leon, April 2023
This book chapter provides an overview of approaches for measuring carbon pricing. It summarizes World Bank indicators for tracking direct carbon pricing, including recent trends, as well as outlining the methodologies and limitations (https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/). This chapter appears in the book Data for a Greener World: A Guide for Practitioners and Policymakers.
More research from Carolyn Fischer
Minimizing Ecological Damage from Road Improvement in Tropical Forests: Evidence from Bolivia, Cameroon and Myanmar
Susmita Dasgupta, David R. Wheeler, 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the vulnerabilities of socio-economic systems globally and exposed the risks that natural capital degradation imposes on human health, economy, and society. This book studies the environmental challenges faced by developing economies in a post-COVID-19 world. This chapter appears in the book Environmental Economics in Developing Countries: Issues and Challenges.
More research from Susmita Dasgupta
Economics of Renewable Energy: A Comparison of Electricity Production Costs Across Technologies
Govinda R. Timilsina, Kalim Shah, May 2022
This chapter appears in the book Oxford Encyclopedia of Environmental Economics. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Environmental Economics focuses on the most important research topics in environmental and natural resource economics, with a treatment of close to 100 different research areas.
More research from Govinda R. Timilsina
Economic Approach to Intergenerational Mobility: Measures, Methods, And Challenges in Developing Countries
M. Shahe Emran, Forhad Shilpi, March 2022
Social mobility is the hope of economic development and the mantra of a good society. There are disagreements about what constitutes social mobility, but there is broad agreement that people should have roughly equal chances of success regardless of their economic status at birth. Concerns about rising inequality have engendered a renewed interest in social mobility—especially in the developing world. This book chapter provides a critical survey and synthesis of the recent economic literature on intergenerational mobility in developing countries, with a focus on data and methodological challenges.
More research from Forhad Shilpi
Energy Subsidies in Russia: Size Impact and Potential for Reform
Apurva Sanghi, Jevgenijs Steinbuks, December 1, 2021
This report seeks to understand the size, impacts, and potential for energy subsidy reform in the Russian Federation to inform policymakers as they explore approaches to reducing such subsidies.
Coping with Climate Change in the Sundarbans: Lessons from Multidisciplinary Studies
Susmita Dasgupta, David Wheeler, Md. Istiak Sobhan, Sunando Bandyopadhyay, Ainun Nishat, and Tapas Paul, November 2020
Climate change is a major threat to the Sundarbans — the world’s largest remaining contiguous mangrove forest — wetland of international importance, and the surrounding poor communities whose livelihoods depend on its natural resources. This book synthesizes multiyear, multidisciplinary studies that assess the vulnerability of this ecosystem and its neighboring coastal communities and recommend “resilient-smart” adaptation measures. The methods and findings will be of interest to development practitioners, policy makers, and researchers focused on island nations and countries worldwide that feature high density populations and economic activity in low-lying coastal regions vulnerable to sea-level rise.
Download the report | More research by Susmita Dasgupta