World Bank - Böcker

Latin America has been surprisingly spared from a generalized wave of corporate governance scandals. One possible explanation is that the region's level of investor protection is adequate. The evidence from the papers in this book says otherwise. The still relatively low level of protection and transparency has created an environment where problems cannot be easily detected or are not worth pursuing. These circumstances have started to push firms thirsty for capital to unilaterally opt for better corporate governance and alleviate this disadvantage. The papers in this book constitute the largest firm-level corporate governance analysis undertaken across Latin American countries. The new datasets in the book allow the researchers to conclude that companies with better self-imposed firm-level governance practices or with listing in U.S. markets are given higher valuations and can raise capital at a lower cost. Although these results are encouraging, they point to a rocky path for the future growth of local Latin American capital markets.

Latin America has been surprisingly spared from a generalized wave of corporate governance scandals. One possible explanation is that the region's level of investor protection is adequate. The evidence from the papers in this book says otherwise. The still relatively low level of protection and transparency has created an environment where problems cannot be easily detected or are not worth pursuing. These circumstances have started to push firms thirsty for capital to unilaterally opt for better corporate governance and alleviate this disadvantage. The papers in this book constitute the largest firm-level corporate governance analysis undertaken across Latin American countries. The new datasets in the book allow the researchers to conclude that companies with better self-imposed firm-level governance practices or with listing in U.S. markets are given higher valuations and can raise capital at a lower cost. Although these results are encouraging, they point to a rocky path for the future growth of local Latin American capital markets.

Public expenditure issues are encountered wherever there is a discussion of government, the public sector, and development. Over the years, the World Bank has invested considerable resources in analyzing public expenditures and the impacts of different interventions on sustainable development. This handbook provides a broad framework for thinking about public expenditure management and how it affects budgetary outcomes. It highlights the fact that good analysis and sound policy are not enough to ensure sound and sustainable development outcomes. Of particular interest is the concept of three levels of budgetary outcomes-aggregate fiscal discipline, strategic prioritization, and operational performance.

This study reviews the recent developments in capital markets and institutional investors in Russia, and examines the policy challenges ahead for the development of the sector. The analysis covers key impediments for further development and policy challenges for securities markets, in particular legal and regulatory framework, market infrastructure, government bonds, sub-sovereign bonds, corporate bonds, and equities. The analysis also covers key impediments for further development and policy challenges for mutual funds, pension funds, and insurance companies.

Increasingly the role of management and governance is recognized as important for providing and delivering effective services at all levels of education. In view of the growing demand for more and better services at secondary education levels, these are crucial issues that must be addressed urgently. Sub-Saharan Africa's secondary education and training systems must become more efficient and more effective. The current (unit) costs of junior and senior secondary education in most African countries prevent massive expansion of post-primary education. This demands a holistic approach to governance and management issues. In parallel, there is a demand from civil society and governments for greater accountability. This study aims to present best practices and identify sustainable development plans for expansion and improved quality and efficiency in the delivery of secondary education in Sub-Saharan Africa through better governance, management, and accountability.

Earthquakes, droughts, floods, and storms are natural hazards, but unnatural disasters are the deaths and damages that result from human acts of omission and commission. Every disaster is unique, but each exposes actions―by individuals and governments at different levels―that, had they been different, would have resulted in fewer deaths and less damage. Prevention is possible, and this book examines what it takes to do this cost-effectively.It looks at disasters primarily through an economic lens. Economists emphasize self-interest to explain how people choose the amount of prevention, insurance, and coping. But lenses can distort as well as sharpen images, so the book also draws from other disciplines: psychology to examine how people may misperceive risks, political science to understand voting patterns, and nutrition science to see how stunting in children after a disaster impairs cognitive abilities and productivity as adults much later. Peering into the future, it shows that while urbanization and climate change will increase exposure to hazards, vulnerability can be reduced if cities are better managed.This book will be of interest to government officials, urban planners, relief agencies, NGOs, donors, and other development practitioners .

The evaluation finds that the content of the World Bank's Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) is largely relevant for growth and poverty reduction in the sense that it maps well with the determinants of growth and poverty reduction identified in the economics literature. However, some CPIA criteria need to be revised (in particular trade and finance), and one needs to be added (assessment of disadvantaged socio-economic groups). Second, the evaluation finds that the CPIA ratings are in general reliable and correlate well with similar indicators. The World Bank's internal review process helps guard against potential biases in having Bank staff rate countries on which their work programs depend. The CPIA ratings are found to correlate better with similar indicators for middle income countries than for low income countries. This could be because there is more information available on middle income countries, which increases the likelihood of different institutions having similar assessments on them.This could also be because the CPIA rating exercise takes into account the stage of development, which is more pertinent for low income countries, and which also subject the ratings of those countries to more judgment in an exercise that is already centered on staff judgment.

ADePT Health is a free-standing computer program that allows users to produce quickly—and with a minimal risk of errors—most tables that have become standard in applied health equity analysis. It allows users to assess which income groups benefit most from government health spending, which use health services most, which spend the most on health care, and which enjoy the best health. ADePT produces summary statistics and charts that allow inequalities to be compared across countries and over time. This manual explains the methods ADePT uses, how to prepare the data for it, how to navigate the ADePT interface to generate the desired tables and charts, and how to interpret them.

This completely revised and updated third edition provides an accessible and straightforward overview of the World Bank Group's history, organization, mission, and purpose. Additionally, for those wishing to delve further into subjects of particular interest, the book guides readers to sources containing more detailed information, including annual reports, Web sites, publications, and e-mail addresses for various departments. It also provides information on how to work for or do business with the World Bank. A good introduction for anyone interested in understanding what the World Bank Group does and how it does it, this book shows readers who want to learn more where to begin.

This Peru Country Program Evaluation for the World Bank Group, 2003-2009 is part of IEG's country program evaluation series. To date, IEG's in-depth country evaluations have comprised IEG-WB Country Assistance Evaluations (CAEs) and IEG-IFC Country Impact Reviews (CIRs). Both the CAEs and CIRs have involved comprehensive evaluations of the respective institutions' activities in a country. In a pilot approach, this evaluation was prepared by a single IEG team that looked at development interventions across the three WBG institutions. The evaluation draws on WBG documents, external literature, and on interviews with government officials, representatives of the private sector and civil society, nongovernmental organisations, bilateral and multilateral development partners, and Bank, IFC, and MIGA staff in Washington and in Peru. An IEG mission visited Peru in September 2009. IEG also cooperated with the Evaluation Office of the Global Environment Facility that was conducting a parallel evaluation in Peru.

Global Development Finance 2011: External Debt of Developing Countries is a continuation of the World Bank’s publications Global Development Finance, Volume II (1997 through 2009) and the earlier World Debt Tables (1973 through 1996). As in previous years, GDF 2011 provides statistical tables showing the external debt of 128 developing countries that report public and publicly guaranteed external debt to the World Bank’s Debtor Reporting System (DRS). It also includes tables of key debt ratios for individual reporting countries and the composition of external debt stocks and flows for individual reporting countries and regional and income groups along with some graphical presentations. GDF 2011 draws on a database maintained by the World Bank External Debt (WBXD) system. Longer time series and more detailed data are available from the Global Development Finance 2011 on CD-ROM and the World Bank open databases, which contain more than 200 time series indicators, covering the years 1970 to 2009 for most reporting countries, and pipeline data for scheduled debt service payments on existing commitments to 2017. The database covers external debt stocks and flows, major economic aggregates, and key debt ratios, as well as average terms of new commitments, currency composition of longterm debt, and debt restructurings in greater detail than can be included in the GDF book. The CD-ROM also contains the full contents of the print version of GDF 2011. Text providing country notes, definitions, and source information is linked to each table. World Bank open databases are available through the World Bank’s website data.worldbank.org. The Little Data Book on External Debt 2011 provides a quick reference to the data from GDF 2011. For more information on the GDF database, visit http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog. Global Development Finance 2011: External Debt of Developing Countries is unique in its coverage of the important trends and issues fundamental to the financing of the developing world. This report is an indispensible resource for governments, economists, investors, financial consultants, academics, bankers, and the entire development community.

This year's Africa development indicators, which covers some 1,700 macroeconomic, sectoral, and human development indicators dating to the 1960s, comes at a critical time for Sub-Saharan Africa's 48 countries and 841 million people. After a decade of economic growth at nearly 5 percent a year, Africa-along with the rest of the world-was hit hard by the global economic crisis, but it rebounded within a year. In 2011 the continent's growth is expected to return to pre crisis levels. The poverty rate has been declining at about one percentage point a year, and progress on the millennium development goals, while insufficient to reach the 2015 targets in many countries, has been substantial. Yet, Africa faces some of the most formidable development challenges in the world. First, growth has been uneven, with about 20 fragile and conflict affected states seemingly trapped in persistent poverty. Second, economic growth has not translated to productive jobs and more earning opportunities for Africa's labor force-most of which is engaged in agriculture and informal enterprises-and especially for the 7-10 million young people entering the labor force each year. And third, Africa's growth could be faster and more widespread if it could address its most fundamental challenges-improving governance and increasing public sector capacity. A tool for learning, capacity strengthening, and accountability, Africa development indicators 2011 will continue to play a critical role in Africa's economic transformation.

Production and export diversification expose firms to domestic and international competition, which enhances productivity and ultimately drives a country's structural transformation from agriculture to industry to services. This structural transformation is accompanied by a spatial transformation seen in the increasing role of leading cities and their hinterlands in production and trade. As Central Asian countries cope with the effects of the global crisis, there is a need to think strategically about how to strengthen their export competitiveness in the medium- to long-term. This is particularly challenging for these countries that have small domestic markets and are landlocked and relatively remote from large markets; they suffer from low domestic economic density, long distances to markets, and significant economic divisions between trading partners and major markets. The report recommends that Central Asian countries build their export-diversification policies on three spatial levels, corresponding with the framework from the 2009 World Bank World Development Report: urban (leading city), area (city-hinterland), and regional (integration with regional markets).It recommends focusing on the two leading cities - Almaty and Astana in Kazakhstan, Bishkek and Osh in the Kyrgyz Republic, and Dushanbe and Khujand in Tajikistan - connecting these leading cities with their agricultural hinterland to unleash the potential of the region's agriculture-related activities, and improving the connections between the six leading cities and major regional markets, such as China, India, Russia, and Turkey, along a north-south road corridor. Policymakers in these countries must take actions along the above three dimensions, and in parallel, to obtain results.

The main message of this year's World Development Report: gender equality and development is that these patterns of progress and persistence in gender equality matter, both for development outcomes and policy making. They matter because gender equality is a core development objective in its own right. But greater gender equality is also smart economics, enhancing productivity and improving other development outcomes, including prospects for the next generation and for the quality of societal policies and institutions. Economic development is not enough to shrink all gender disparities-corrective policies that focus on persisting gender gaps are essential. This report points to four priority areas for policy going forward. First, reducing gender gaps in human capital-specifically those that address female mortality and education. Second, closing gender gaps in access to economic opportunities, earnings, and productivity. Third, shrinking gender differences in voice and agency within society. Fourth, limiting the reproduction of gender inequality across generations. These are all areas where higher incomes by themselves do little to reduce gender gaps, but focused policies can have a real impact. Gender equality is at the heart of development. It's the right development objective, and it's smart economic policy. The World Development Report 2012 can help both countries and international partners think through and integrate a focus on gender equality into development policy making and programming.

The guide serves as a primer for decision and policy makers, technical specialists, central, regional and local government officials, and concerned stakeholders in the community sector, civil society and non-governmental organizations, and the private sector. The Guide embodies the state-of-the art on integrated urban flood risk management. The Guide starts with a summary for policy makers which outlines and describes the key areas which policy makers need to be knowledgeable about to create policy directions and an integrated strategic approach for urban flood risk management. The core of the Guide consists of seven chapters, organized as: understanding flood hazard; understanding flood impacts; integrated flood risk management (structural measures and non-structural measures); evaluating alternative flood risk management options: tools for decision makers; implementing integrated flood risk management; and conclusion. Each chapter starts with a full contents list and a summary of the chapter for quick reference.

The end of the MFA was followed by rising apparel exports, falling prices, and a reallocation of production and employment between countries. There were also significant changes within countries. The first main finding of this report is that export and employment patterns after the MFA/ATC did not necessarily match predictions. While many predicted that production would shift to low-wage countries, this book shows that only 13% of variation in export changes post-MFA can be explained by the differences in wage levels. Second, changes in exports are usually, but not always, good indicators of what happens to wages and employment within countries. This is especially important for policy because it shows that simply using exports as a metric of 'success' in terms of helping the poor is not sufficient. Third, the Book identifies the specific ways that changes in the global apparel market affected earnings. The Book shows that wage premiums change in predictable ways: rising (in most cases) in countries that were proactive in adapting to the MFA phase-out and expanded their market shares, and falling in countries that failed to respond in a timely fashion to the changing environment.The book shows that promoting 'upgrading' (defined as shifting to higher-value goods, shifting up the value chain, or 'modernizing' production techniques) seems to be necessary for sustainable competitiveness in the apparel sector but does not necessarily help the poor. Policies that support upgrading need to be complemented with targeted workforce development to make sure that the most vulnerable workers are not left behind. Having a vision for the evolution of the apparel sector that incorporates developing worker skills seems crucial. Otherwise, less-skilled workers could miss out on opportunities to gain valuable work experience in manufacturing.

This study provides a conceptual framework for the analysis of the questions of out-of-court debt restructuring from a policy-oriented perspective. The starting point of the analysis is given by the World Bank Principles for Effective Insolvency and Creditor Rights Systems. The study offers an overview of out-of-court restructuring, which is not seen as fundamentally opposed to formal insolvency procedures. Actually, the study contemplates different restructuring techniques as forming a continuum to the treatment of financial difficulties. Thus, from the purely contractual – or informal – arrangements for debt rescheduling between the debtor and its creditors, to the fully formal reorganization or liquidation procedures, there are numerous intermediate solutions. In the study, these solutions are identified by the terms of enhanced procedures –where the contractual arrangements are supported by norms or principles for workouts; and hybrid procedures –where the contractual arrangements are supported by the intervention of the courts or an administrative authority. The study discusses the advantages and disadvantages of all the debt restructuring techniques, and concludes, in this regard, that a legal system may contain a number of options – a menu – that can cover different sets of circumstances. In the end, the law may offer a toolbox with very different instruments that the parties may use depending on the specific facts of the case. A substantial part of the study is devoted to the analysis of the enabling regulatory environment for out-of-court restructuring. It is evident that debt restructuring does not operate in a vacuum: in fact, the general legal system influences and to a certain extent determines the possibilities for debt restructuring in any given jurisdiction. The study provides a checklist that can be used to examine the features of a legal system that bear a direct influence on debt restructuring activities. The different characteristics of informal restructurings, and of enhanced and hybrid debt restructurings are covered by the study. The different approaches to debt restructuring aim at combining the advantages of an informal approach with the advantages of formal procedures: especially, the existence of a moratorium on creditor actions and the binding effects of creditor agreements concluded within the insolvency process.