It’s financial inclusion week—a series of events exploring "the most pressing actions needed to advance financial inclusion globally"—making this a perfect time to launch the 2017 Global…

Here is a one-page instruction manual for managing an effective public service.  It is based on a recent World Bank Policy Research Working paper by Imran Rasul, Martin Williams and myself. 

Labels matter. Girls who are reminded of stereotypes about how girls perform in math do worse on math exams (in some circumstances). Publicly revealing the caste of students in India led to worse…

In June 2015, after two days of heavy rain, flood water washed away Sarah’s small store in Accra, which provided for her family of three (1). The flood that hit the city in June 2015 affected…

Ceilings on lending rates remain a widely-used instrument in many EMDEs as well as developed economies. The economic and political rationale for putting ceilings on lending rates is to protect…

This page in: Français Across European countries, women continue to earn less than men. Looking at data for full-time working women across 30 countries, we find that women would have needed an…

There are about 245 million migrants worldwide – around 3% of the world population. Roughly one-fifth are tertiary educated. Middle-income countries have a smaller proportion of immigrants than…

Developing countries made considerable gains during the 2000s, resulting in a large reduction in extreme poverty and a significant expansion of the middle class. More recently that progress has…

In the ongoing debate about the benefits of trade, we must not lose sight of a vital fact. Trade and global integration have raised incomes across the world, while dramatically cutting poverty and…

After years of bad news from developing countries about high rates of health worker absenteeism, and low rates of delivery of key health interventions, along came what seemed like a magic bullet:…