The World Bank - Working for a world free of poverty

Views menu

Building Capacity through Rethinking Development

About us

About

This blog is maintained by the Growth and Crisis (GC ) Program of the World Bank Institute.

We bring you timely news, resources, tools, ideas and commentaries on issues related to the global economic crisis and growth.

March 2008

Fridays Academy: Gender and Macroeconomics

Submitted by Ignacio on Fri, 03/28/2008 - 10:11

As usual on Fridays, from  Raj Nallari and Breda Griffith's lecture notes.

 

Gender and Macroeconomic Aggregates

 

Differences in the behavior of men and women may lead to different macroeconomic outcomes, particularly for such important macroeconomic aggregates as private consumption, saving and investment, and composition of government expenditure.  Gender budgeting has become an important issue in most countries over the past few decades and we will examine the methods and country-experience of gender budgeting in future postings.  The next weeks we will examine gender and consumption and gender and savings. We first contextualize the discussion by examining the linkages between the household and its gender composition and macroeconomic aggregates. 

 

The Household and Macroeconomic Aggregates

World Bank Institute (WBI) alumni

Submitted by Ignacio on Wed, 03/26/2008 - 16:28

The World Bank Institute (WBI) has created WBI alumni, a web page for alumni from our courses (face to face, via video conference or E-learning). You can sign up to receive their quarterly newsletter, to stay informed about WBI initiatives, events, publications, and other resources.

Stay tuned for the announcement here of an Internet "Export Development and Diversification" course. Coming soon.

Fridays Academy: Gender and Macroeconomics

Submitted by Ignacio on Fri, 03/21/2008 - 11:12

As usual on Fridays, from  Raj Nallari and Breda Griffith's lecture notes.

 
Engendering Macroeconomic Models

Ça?atay (1998) identified three ways in which models can be useful for integrating gender into macroeconomic models. First, models that encourage theoretical precision are instrumental in organizing knowledge and giving direction to research by focusing on the types of data that need to be collected. Second, models foster communication with the mainstream economics profession and may influence and/or change prejudices. Third, models inform policy-making and have practical implications.  Against these three premises, Ça?atay offers four approaches to gender-aware macroeconomic modeling, discussed below.  

Migration, Remittances and Development

Submitted by Ignacio on Wed, 03/19/2008 - 17:42
The World Bank organized today a discussion on the linkages between migration, remittances and development, on the occasion of the launching of the Migration and Remittances Factbook 2008.
 
Two of the speakers, Jason DeParle and Dilip Ratha, were respectively the writer and the main subject of an interesting article published in the New York Times last Monday: World Banker and His Cash Return Home.

 Demetrios Papademetriou, Co-founder and President of The Migration Policy Institute (MPI), also gave his point of view about the linkage (or lack thereof) between migration policies and development. The Migration Policy Institute’s website is a great source of information on this topic.

For more information, check also the World Bank's Migration and Remittances site.

 

Fridays Academy: Gender and Macroeconomics

Submitted by Ignacio on Sat, 03/15/2008 - 19:23

The Fridays Academy arrives on a Saturday this week, due to some technical problems. As usual, from  Raj Nallari and Breda Griffith's lecture notes.
 
 
Gender Databases
 
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Gender Statistics Database was released in May 2003 with the aim of monitoring gender in all UNECE member countries and evaluating the effectiveness of policies.  The database is a principal component of the gender statistics website developed and maintained by UNECE in association with the national statistics offices.  The website was initiated in October 2000 to strengthen national statistical capacity in the production, quality and use of gender statistics in countries, in particular the transition countries. A number of international bodies are active in the CIS, SEE region collecting, producing, disseminating and monitoring gender statistics – the UNECE, UNDP, World Bank, FAO, UNFPA, US Census Bureau/USAID.  

The Gender Statistics Database of the UNECE presents sex-disaggregated social data.  The data covers the common gender indicators – population, families and households, work and the economy, education, public life and decision making, health, crime and violence – as well as the data series that are used to calculate these indicators. Fifty two countries contribute data through the gender statistics focal points from national statistics offices, for 1980, 1990, 1995 and annually from 2000 to 2006.

Fridays Academy: Gender and Macroeconomics

Submitted by Ignacio on Fri, 03/07/2008 - 10:58

As usual on Fridays, from  Raj Nallari and Breda Griffith's lecture notes.

Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM)

The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) seeks to measure relative female representation in economic and political power (Klasen, 2006).  The GEM is concerned with opportunities, whether females are in a position to use their capabilities to take advantage of opportunities in economic and political power. It includes three dimensions of female economic and political power: (i) political participation and decision making power, as measured by female and male percentage shares of parliamentary seats; (ii) economic participation and decision-making, as measured by the female and male percentage shares of positions as legislators, senior officials and managers AND female and male percentage shares of professional and technical positions; and (iii) power over economic resources, as measured by male and female’s estimated earned income.

Calculating the GEM

       Source:   Technical Note 1, UNDP Human Development Report, 2006

 

ABCDE 2008 (Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics)

Submitted by Ignacio on Tue, 03/04/2008 - 10:25

This year's edition of the ABCDE will take place in Cape Town (South Africa) on 9-11 June 2008. Under the overarching theme of 'People, Politics & Globalization', it will focus on three broad themes:

  • Globalization, Investment and Growth
  • Human Development for Equitable Growth

  • The Political Economy of Shared Growth

More information about the ABCDE

Register on-line. Deadline is May 18, 2008

ABCDE support grant for participants from developing countries. Deadline to apply is March 31, 2008.