PSD Blog's Countdown to 2010: Part 1
As the "naughties" finally come to a close, PSD blog will spend the next few days looking ahead to 2010.
Entrepreneurship
Is it time for the World Bank to dump the Blackberry?
Over the weekend the New York
Non profits, web2.0 and the "where does my money go" question
Here's a coincidence that got me thinking: this week I came across the prototype UK site "Where does my money go?", the latest in a series of projects that aims to make government spending more transparent (see here and here for more examples).
Weekend Reading
The unemployment rate decreased in 36 US states last month.
Eastern Europe and the Crisis: Is the worst over?
The World Bank's Enterprise Surveys team has published a new survey of businesses in Eastern Europe, analyzing the long-term effects of the financial crisis in the region. The report looks at survey data collected last summer from over 1,600 firms in Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Turkey, finding that the crisis has had a detrimental effect on demand:
Stability in Iraq depends on a business-friendly government
NPR story cited World Bank report
In the report, "Iraq's Shaky Economy Poses Threat to Future," NPR cites The World Bank's Doing Business report that ranks economies based on the ease of doing business in particular countries:
The process of setting up a business in Iraq requires 11 procedures,
Should the US offer "start-up" visas?
Paul Kedrosky and Brad Feld make the case in the Wall Street Journal:
The Curious Indian Entrepreneur
I attended a session from yesterday's Entrepreneurship and Growth Conference on "Indian Entrepreneurial Success in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom". RAND corporation's Krishna B Kumar attempted to explain the extraordinary successes of Indian expatriate
World Bank Events Shout-Out
The World Bank and IFC are featuring several excellent events this week that are well-worth attending.
How relevant is the location of informal businesses for policy?
A distinction is often made between informal firms operating within, versus outside, household premises. In some sense, the former represent the quintessential informal firms beset with a number of problems, such as low efficiency, etc. Policies aimed at bringing informal firms into the fold of the formal sector could therefore be expected to have a bigger impact when targeted toward informal firms operating within, rather than outside, the household.