Important developments today:
1. Global equity market are headed for their worst quarter since 2008.
2. Economic sentiment in Europe on downward trend.
For those of us anxiously awaiting the new edition of the World Bank’s leading publication, the World Development Report (WDR) each year, this year’s edition does not disappoint. Credit should be given to the team of the ‘WDR2012: Gender Equality and Development’ team for successfully moving their analysis from skepticism to the elaboration of a sensible analytical framework focused on aspects of gender equa
There has recently been heated debate regarding migrant employment behavior in host countries during and after economic crises. The popular view is that migrants have an incentive to remain unemployed as long as they have access to unemployment benefits, free health care, and education. Thus, many argue, that migrants should not be provided with benefits as they create perverse incentives for migrants to stay unemployed. However, recent data does not support such a simple relationship. In fact recent data shows that sometimes migrants that lose jobs tend to find work quickly during and after crises.
A recent article in the Economist based on OECD Migration Outlook 2011 provided some useful data to show the complex patterns of migrant unemployment compared to nationals. The data shows that the relationship between migrants and unemployment incidence depends on a variety of labor market conditions including unemployment benefits, skill level of migrants, business cycle patterns, the sectors they are employed in, and labor market flexibility.
The following piece appeared as a guest blog in the UK's Guardian this past week.
A good public education system means public spending – but not necessarily public provision.
In OECD countries, more than 20% of public education expenditure goes to private institutions – communities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), faith-based organisations, trade unions, private companies, small informal providers and individual practitioners – and about 12% is spent on privately-managed institutions.
But does private participation mean higher quality education? Does it bring better exam results? Can it encourage greater equality?
During his July 19-22 visit to Turkey, World Bank president Robert B. Zoellick put his finger on a key issue, female participation in the Turkish workforce. It wasn't a coincidence that Zoellick commended Turkey's remarkable economic performance and spoke of the gender-gap in Turkey concurrently. The Turkish case presents a dilemma. Despite Turkey's successes in macroeconomic stability and poverty-reduction, the participation of women in economic life is abysmal.
Does a remote double-landlocked Commonwealth of Independent States country have the potential to grow at 8 percent a year for the next 20 years? Call me an optimist, but I have just been to the country and I am convinced it’s true. My lecture to a packed audience in Tashkent on ‘Uzbekistan: New Strategies and Opportunities for Structural Transformation’ was well received. Perhaps they were just being extraordinarily polite hosts, but officials there thought my visit marked a transformation point and at the end of my visit, they said they’d start working on a long-term development vision report together with the World Bank and their think tanks.
The recipe for dynamic growth in a developing country is to tap into latecomer’s advantages by developing industries in accordance with its comparative advantages in a well-functioning market economy with the state playing a facilitating role. In the case of Uzbekistan, the potential of late comer advantages have been enormous in many sectors including the traditional ones, such as carpet, garment and horticulture, and modern ones, such as consumer electronics and cars. I visited a carpet factory in Samarkand. Impressed by the owner’s entrepreneurship and the abundant supply of well-educated, disciplined, wage-competitive workers, I am convinced Uzbekistan can out compete Turkey as the world’s production center of synthetic carpets in the coming years.
Important developments today:
1. European Union pledges Greek aid
2. German Business executives remain optimistic
At approximately 46 million, the diaspora population originating from the ECA (Europe & Central Asia) countries is the largest of all the development regions. Over ten percent of the population of the ECA countries currently lives outside their home countries, a much larger share than the 3 percent of the world’s population who are defined as migrants. Even if some immigrants choose to fully assimilate in the recipient countries, there is still a significant number who maintains active links to their countries of origin. The flow of remittances in ECA coming from this Diaspora is also quite significant, more than 30 percent of GDP in some ECA countries. This financial contribution has led to a dialogue on potential Diaspora Bonds to attract much needed investment for capital projects (see Dilip Ratha’s work).
I was recently invited to a panel discussion to comment on the movie ‘With My Own Two Wheels’ (http://www.withmyowntwowheels.org) which illustrates how bicycles can serve as a missing link to development. It follows the transformation taking place in the lives of 5 individuals.
In a previous post written jointly with Arvind Jain, Arvind and I highlighted some recent findings concerning businesses in Azerbaijan. Below, I extend the discussion to another country, Russia. What follows is a brief summary of our main findings, with more details available in the country note, found hereThe note is based on newly collected firm-level data on various aspects of the business climate and experiences of a statistically representative sample of firms Enterprise Surveys. The data also contain information on various measures of performance and the structures of the firms. The main findings are as follows.
How we can make the next decade one in which all children, everywhere, are in school and learning? The World Bank's Lead Economist for education, Halsey Rogers, joins the Harvard EdCast from Washington to discuss the new Education Strategy 2020 and a global agenda for learning.
Having lived through the 1989 fall of the Berlin wall – and its subsequent domino effect through the region– we have been watching the ongoing Arab Spring with a strong sense of familiarity.
The more I work on migration issues, I have come to realize the uniqueness of the CIS region migration phenomena. Migration in what is currently called the CIS region (the former Soviet Union) includes both migration within the region and external migration. Although the CIS countries are now nation states, they were earlier part of one country. The migration phenomena, therefore, existed for more than 70 years before the fall of Soviet Union in 1991. Despite being ethnically different, almost all speak Russians (although the fluency in Russian is declining over time, especially in the younger generation). There is substantial movement of goods and services and trade integration across the region.
Following the recent launch of the World Bank’s new Education Strategy for 2020 by President Robert Zoellick, we now turn to thinking about how the new strategy translates into action on the ground around the world. In Europe and Central Asia (ECA), how can the principles of learning for all make a difference for this rapidly transforming region?
Ca urmare a lansării recente a noii Strategii a Băncii Mondiale în domeniul Învățământului pentru 2020 de către Președintele Robert Zoellick, începem acum să reflectăm despre felul cum această strategie nouă va fi pusă în aplicare pe teren în toată lumea. În Europa și Asia Centrală (EAC), cum pot principiile învățământului pentru toți să schimbe regiunea dată care se află într-o transformare rapidă?
