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Counting Financial Inclusion and Debating its Merits

Submitted by Leora Klapper on Tue, 2012-05-08 12:52

Shedding light on and engaging in debate regarding financial inclusion is important and we can now be more informed on the topic thanks to the release last month of the Global Financial Inclusion Database, or Global Findex. With this in mind, I want to react from my point of view as supervisor of the Global Findex project to a recent post by Milford Bateman on The Guardian’s Poverty Matters blog.


Global Findex makes a valuable contribution to our development work, because it means that now researchers and policymakers no longer have to rely on a patchwork of incompatible household surveys and aggregated central bank data for a comprehensive view of the financial inclusion landscape.


It also means debates about financial inclusion can be rooted in more solid facts.

Ask Your Questions As We Live Blog From the ABCDE Next Monday and Tuesday

Submitted by Claudia Sepúlveda on Fri, 2012-05-04 14:27

We will be live blogging and Tweeting during the keynote presentations on both days of the World Bank's Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) this coming Monday and Tuesday (May 7-8). 


Hernando de Soto of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (Peru) will be speaking on Monday @ 9am (EST) on 'Live, Dead, and Fictitious Capital' and Timothy Besley of the London School of Economics (UK) will be speaking on Tuseday @ 9am (EST) on 'Transparency and Accountability: Interpreting the Evidence.'


We're keen on your receiving your questions, so be sure to send them our way through the World Bank Live platform.


Please also visit the ABCDE 2012 Website for the full agenda, working papers, and other materials. Also, follow us on Twitter @ABCDEwb and use #wblive or #ABCDE to join the live discussion.


Look forward to seeing you online!

Dueling Development Visions: Shaping the World Bank for the Future

Submitted by Michael Woolcock on Fri, 2012-04-13 10:36

As candidates for the presidency of the World Bank have been the focus of attention in recent weeks, divergent views have been exchanged regarding what ‘development’ actually is, how it should be conducted, and how efforts to bring it about should be assessed. Beyond the geo-strategic issues, how these questions are answered inexorably shapes what kind of leader one thinks should head up the world’s largest multilateral development agency, what kind of agenda that agency should pursue, and what kind of skills its staff should have.

The Law’s Majestic Equality?

Submitted by Varun Gauri on Mon, 2012-04-02 08:31

Literary writers do not think much of the law. In the last century, Anatole France wrote, mordantly: “The majestic equality of the laws prohibits the rich and the poor alike from sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets and stealing bread.” More recently, Aarvind Adiga says, “The jails of Delhi are full of drivers who are there behind bars because they are taking the blame for their good, solid middle-class masters. . . . The judges? Wouldn't they see through this obviously forced confession? But they are in the racket too. They take their bribe, they ignore the discrepancies in the case. And life goes on.”

International capital flows: Final picture from 2009

Submitted by Shahrokh Fardoust, co-authors: Malvina Pollock on Fri, 2010-12-17 19:24
 Photo: Istockphoto.com

As snow covers ground in Washington, D.C., debt markets swoon, and another year comes to a close, it seems like a good time to look at what actually happened to international capital flows to developing countries last year and what that might portend for flows in 2010, as this year’s numbers will be finalized in coming months.

At a time when the global economy has seen the most severe slowdown since the end of WWII, capital flows to the developing world—including private flows (debt and equity) and official capital flows (loans and grants from all sources)—are in an overall slump, well below their level in 2007 ($1.1 trillion). According to the just-published Global Development Finance: External Debt of Developing Countries, which contains detailed data on the external debt of 128 developing countries for 2009, net capital flows to these countries fell by 20 percent from $744 billion in 2008 to $598 billion in 2009. 

The Great Recession – Lessons from 10 Countries

Submitted by Vamsee Kanchi on Fri, 2010-12-17 18:54

How did developing countries fare during the crisis and what are their medium term prospects? These questions are at least partly answered in a new book covering 10 countries. Titled 'The Great Recession and the Developing Countries: Economic Impact and Growth Prospects,’ the book analyzes the  growth before, during and after the crisis of Brazil, China, Ethiopia, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, Turkey, and Vietnam.

The book’s editor, Mustapha Nabli, estimates that the average potential growth rate for the ten countries before the financial crisis was about 6 percent.  Unlike the overheated financial sector, pre-crisis trade and remittance levels were sustainable.
Once the crisis hit, however, less diversified countries really felt the heat. Their financial sectors eventually recovered, but trade remained low, thus adversely affecting their growth.  13.6 percent of Turkey’s 2009 GDP, for example, was shaved off during the financial crisis.  Possibly this was due in part to fears left over from past financial crises.

Llegar al fondo de la cuestión: Más allá de la guerra de divisas

Submitted by Shahrokh Fardoust, co-authors: Claudia Sepúlveda on Thu, 2010-11-11 12:22
 Photo: istockphoto.com

Muchos observadores predicen que la cumbre del Grupo de los Veinte (G-20) que se lleva a cabo esta semana en Seúl será recordada principalmente como un baile de alta diplomacia destinado a persuadir a sus  miembros para que se abstengan de una devaluación competitiva de sus monedas  y regulen los desequilibrios excesivos en cuenta corriente.

Si la mayoría de los titulares de Seúl se refieren a disputas sobre divisas y a quién pertenece el déficit o superávit más perjudicial, entonces los líderes se habrán malgastado la oportunidad de llegar al fondo de la cuestión.

En efecto, ese resultado sería un revés para los países en desarrollo y afectaría posiblemente la legitimidad del G-20 como agente de inclusión de la cooperación económica y financiera en la economía mundial.