Trade barriers can affect employment outcomes of men and women differently, particularly in countries where working men and women are concentrated in different sectors. A new World Bank study from…

Gayatri Koolwal, Bernard Haven |

South Asia has a rich history of informal foreign exchange markets such as the well-known Hundi and Hawala . These informal networks play a significant role in traditional societies and informal…

Zoe Leiyu Xie, Xiao'ou Zhu |

South Asia, battered by three years of upheaval from the COVID-19 pandemic and spillovers from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, faces a combination of good and bad news for its economies. On the…

Jiemin Ren, Zoe Leiyu Xie |

As the gusts of the COVID-19 pandemic quieten, South Asian economies, left fragile and uneven in their recovery, are facing renewed headwinds: high inflation, rising fiscal deficits, and…

Zoe Leiyu Xie, Xiao'ou Zhu |

From plastic pollution to remittance flows, climate change to digital technology, human capital to road safety, we look back at the past year and highlight some of the most popular blogs from 2021…

Trishna Thapa |

Improving revenue administration could play in strengthening domestic resource mobilization while supporting sustainable forest management.

Amanda Robbins, Emily Kallaur |

Economic activity in South Asia decelerated sharply in 2019 amid financial sector issues in India, monetary tightening in Pakistan, and global headwinds to regional exports. Five charts illustrate…

Temel Taskin |

MSMEs are crucial to Bangladesh’s financial and economic development. Close to 99 percent of non-farm enterprises in the country are MSMEs. Reexamining outdated policies and lifting institutional…

Mihasonirina Andrianaivo, Aminata Ndiaye |