This blog is a biweekly feature highlighting recent working papers from around the World Bank Group. It introduces four papers published from November 1 to November 15 on various topics, including…

Marcelo Buitron, Policy Research Working Paper team |

Detailed data on the spatial distribution of jobs is crucial, but such data are rarely available. This study develops a machine learning algorithm that relies on widely available public data to…

Paolo Avner, Jun Rentschler, Samira Barzin, Neave O'Clery |

Las empresas privadas son la columna vertebral de la mayoría de las economías en desarrollo. Proporcionan 9 de cada 10 empleos, generan ingresos fiscales para financiar proyectos de…

Martin Spicer |

Few countries can match Cabo Verde’s development progress over the past quarter of a century. Its Gross National Income per capita (GNI) grew six-fold. Extreme poverty fell by two-thirds from 30%…

Rob Swinkels, Rohan Longmore |

For the poor and vulnerable of the world, jobs are key to ending poverty and driving development. But not all jobs are equally transformational.  Photo: Jonathan Ernst / World Bank Jobs are what…

Alvaro Gonzalez |

  On a recent trip to the Caribbean, I was in a meeting at the Ministry of Finance of one of the region’s largest economies. The topic under discussion was all too familiar: the difficulty of…

We are all aware of the statistics: [[tweetable]]cities are home to more than 50% of the world’s population, [[/tweetable]] and they are growing so fast that 66 out of 100 people on earth will be…

Soraya Goga |

The BMR Jamaica Wind project,  Jamaica’s largest private-sector renewable energy project. Photo: IFC Last month, a new wind farm began spinning its blades in Jamaica. At 36 megawatts (MW) it…

Kruskaia Sierra-Escalante |

Street scene in Delmas, Haiti “Plantain nu eat like rice” — a Caribbean saying roughly translated as “Make do with what is available to you” — applies to the region’s experience with public-…

Luciana Guimaraes Drummond e Silva |