Ponzis are among the most ubiquitous and least understood phenomena of economic life. They acquired a certain salience with the global financial crisis of 2008 and the crash of Bernie Madoffs celebrated Ponzi scheme.
... Vea más + This paper explains the structure of Ponzi schemes and goes on to argue that what makes this such a troubling phenomenon is its ability to be camouflaged amidst legitimate practices. It is shown, for instance, that the common practice of giving stock options to employees could be a potential Ponzi that allows corporations to flourish for a while by borrowing from its own future. The paper goes on to discuss the need for intelligent regulation to incise harmful Ponzis (not all Ponzis are harmful) while taking care not to damage other legitimate activities that surround them.
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Documento de trabajo sobre investigaciones relativas a políticas WPS6967 JUL 01, 2014
This knowledge note is the first of three case studies that concerns scaling up access to electricity in Africa, Bangladesh, and Rwanda. Lighting Africa, a joint IFC and World Bank program launched in 2007, was the first private-sector-oriented effort to leverage new LED lighting technologies to build sustainable markets that provide safe, affordable, and modern off-grid lighting to communities in Africa that lack access to electricity.
... Vea más + By 2030 the program aims to enable the private sector to reach 250 million people who now depend on fuel-based lighting. The case study for Africa is important, because the continent faces a huge rural electricity deficit. Global electrification in 2010 was estimated to be about 83 percent. The deficit of 17 percent encompasses some 1.2 billion people. Achieving universal access to modern energy services is one of the three complementary objectives of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative. Lighting Africa succeeded as a catalyst for the off-grid lighting market in Sub-Saharan Africa. Another success is apparent in the spectacular trajectory of solar lantern sales in Kenya. On the climate front, the program has avoided 274,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of taking 35,000 cars off the road. Important lessons were learned during the first phase of the program. Some interventions were very successful; others could have been done differently. Going forward, the Lighting Africa program will support the geographic expansion of ongoing activities to enable market-based solutions for affordable, modern off-grid lighting. The following challenges will be addressed: solar home systems, consumer awareness, and impact evaluation.
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The Executive Directors approved the establishment of the fund as described in the President's memorandum entitled proposal to establish a bio-carbon fund (BioCF).
... Vea más + The reasons the United States (U.S.) 200 million dollars limit was no longer relevant was due to the change of the carbon market environment and the innovative activities envisaged under tranche 3 of the BioCF, for which the World Bank is currently the only market player that possesses the capacity to pilot these. These reasons are: (a) change of carbon market environment; and (b) activities envisaged under the initiative for sustainable forest landscapes (ISFL) (tranche 3 of the BioCF). The World Bank is the only player that has the capacity to drive this innovation. In order to do this, scaling up to larger levels of fund capital is needed. The Bank will continue to lead by innovation and bridge the gap before new climate negotiations fuel renewed demand for land use credits; the latter is not expected till after 2020 when an international climate agreement may be reached. While tranches 1 and 2 of the BioCF committed U.S. 83.3 million dollars to over 20 projects, tranche 3 is expected to commit U.S. 280 million dollars to up to four programs. Tranche 3 will close by December 2030.
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Memorando y recomendación del Presidente P7766 JUN 09, 2014
The impact of immigration on native workers is driven by two countervailing forces: the degree of substitutability between natives and immigrants, and the increased demand for native workers as immigrants reduce the cost of production and output expands.
... Vea más + The literature so far has focused on the former substitution effect, while ignoring the latter scale effect. This paper estimates both of these effects using labor force survey data from Malaysia (1990-2010), a country uniquely suited for understanding the impact of low-skilled immigration. The instrumental variable estimates imply that the elasticity of labor demand (3.4) is greater than the elasticity of substitution between natives and immigrants (2.5). On average the scale effect outweighs the substitution effect. For every ten additional immigrants, employment of native workers increases by 4.1 in a local labor market. These large reallocation effects are accompanied by negligible relative wage changes. At the national level, a 10 percent increase in immigrants, equivalent to 1 percent increase in labor force, has a small positive effect on native wages (0.14 percent). The impact of immigration is highly heterogeneous for natives with different levels of education, resulting in substantial changes in skill premiums and hence inequality. Immigrants on net displace natives with at most primary education; while primarily benefiting those with a little more education, lower secondary or completed secondary education.
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Documento de trabajo sobre investigaciones relativas a políticas WPS6900 JUN 01, 2014
This paper revisits the extent of seasonality in African livelihoods, which has disappeared from Africa's development debate. Through econometric analysis of monthly food price series across 100 locations in three countries during 2000-12, it is shown that seasonal movements in maize wholesale prices explain 20 (Tanzania, Uganda) to 40 (Malawi) percent of their monthly volatility.
... Vea más + Monthly maize peak prices are on average 30 (Tanzania, Uganda) to 50 (Malawi) percent higher than their monthly troughs and two to three times higher than the seasonal gaps observed for white maize at the South African Futures Exchange. Furthermore, household food consumption is found to inversely track food prices in each country, decreasing when staple prices increase and increasing when they decline. Clearly, (excess) seasonality in African food markets and consumption persists, necessitating policy attention.
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Documento de trabajo sobre investigaciones relativas a políticas WPS6907 JUN 01, 2014
Kaminski, Jonathan; Christiaensen, Luc; Gilbert, Christopher L.
This paper reports on a randomized field experiment that uses price incentives to address economic and gender inequality in land tenure formalization.
... Vea más + During the 1990s and 2000s, nearly two dozen African countries proposed de jure land reforms extending access to formal, freehold land tenure to millions of poor households. Many of these reforms stalled. Titled land remains the de facto preserve of wealthy households and, within households, men. Beginning in 2010, the study tested whether price instruments alone can generate greater inclusion by offering formal titles to residents of a low-income, unplanned settlement in Dar es Salaam at a range of subsidized prices, as well as additional price incentives to include women as owners or co-owners of household land. Estimated price elasticities of demand confirm that prices -- rather than other implementation failures or features of the titling regime -- are a key obstacle to broader inclusion in the land registry, and that some degree of pro-poor price discrimination is justified even from a narrow budgetary perspective. In terms of gender inequality, the study finds that even small price incentives for female co-titling achieve almost complete gender parity in land ownership with no reduction in demand.
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Documento de trabajo sobre investigaciones relativas a políticas WPS6908 JUN 01, 2014
Ali, Daniel Ayalew; Collin, Matthew; Deininger, Klaus; Dercon, Stefan; Sandefur, Justin; Zeitlin, Andrew
This paper examines the extent to which the destination of exports matters for the input prices paid by firms, using detailed customs and firm-product-level data from Portugal.
... Vea más + The authors use exchange rate movements as a source of variation in export destinations and find that exporting to richer countries leads firms to charge more for outputs and pay higher prices for inputs, other things equal. The results are supportive of the hypothesis that an exogenous increase in average destination income leads firms to raise the average quality of goods they produce and to purchase higher-quality inputs.
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Documento de trabajo sobre investigaciones relativas a políticas WPS6914 JUN 01, 2014
To assess how capital stocks adapt to energy price changes, it is necessary to account for the impacts on different vintages of capital and to account separately for price-induced and autonomous improvements in the energy efficiency of capital stock.
... Vea más + The results of econometric analysis for five manufacturing industries in 19 OECD countries between 1990 and 2005 indicate that higher energy prices resulted in smaller energy use due to both improved energy efficiency of capital stock and reduced demand for the energy input. The investment response to energy prices varied considerably across manufacturing industries, being more significant in energy-intensive sectors. The results of policy simulations indicate that a carbon tax can deliver significant reductions in energy consumption in the medium run with modest declines in energy-using capital stock.
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Documento de trabajo sobre investigaciones relativas a políticas WPS6929 JUN 01, 2014
Some analysts believe that the commodity price boom of the new millennium has played itself out. However, natural resource based commodity prices (with the exception of shale gas and its downward pressure on United States (U.S.) natural gas prices) have remained high by historical records over the last few years, despite the feeble global economic recovery.
... Vea más + The commodity price spike that started at the end of the 1990s has not been significantly affected by the global downturn, with average prices similar to 2008 levels. Indeed, commodity prices have occasionally shown signs of reviving more quickly than the global economic output level. So the question is: have one entered a phase of descending commodity prices? This note argues that it may be too soon to say that the commodity super-cycle phenomenon is a thing of the past.
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Natural resources are being discovered in more countries, both rich and poor. Many of the new and aspiring resource exporters are low-income countries that are still receiving substantial levels of foreign aid.
... Vea más + Resource discoveries open up enormous opportunities, but also expose producing countries to huge trade and fiscal shocks from volatile commodity markets if their exports are highly concentrated. A large literature on the "resource curse" shows that these are damaging unless countries manage to cushion the effects through countercyclical policy. It also shows that the countries least likely to do so successfully are those with weaker institutions, and these are most likely to remain as clients of the aid system. This paper considers the question of how donors should respond to their clients' potential windfalls. It discusses several ways in which the focus and nature of foreign aid programs will need to change, including the level of financial assistance. The paper develops some ideas on how a donor like the International Development Association might structure its program of financial transfers to mitigate volatility. The paper outlines ways in which the International Development Association could use hedging instruments to vary disbursements while still working within a framework of country allocations that are not contingent on oil prices. Simulations suggest that the International Development Association could be structured to provide a larger degree of insurance if it is calibrated to hedge against large declines in resource prices. These suggestions are intended to complement other mechanisms, including self-insurance using Sovereign Wealth Funds (where possible) and the facilities of the International Monetary Fund.
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Documento de trabajo sobre investigaciones relativas a políticas WPS6952 JUN 01, 2014
Dobronogov, Anton; Gelb, Alan; Saldanha, Fernando Brant
Successful entry into export markets and the subsequent survival of export flows are crucial if a country is to grow and diversify its export base.
... Vea más + The accumulated experience of firms that export a particular product or serve a specific destination can provide valuable information. When more of this export-relevant information is available to exporters, export flows have better chances of survival in new markets. However, many developing countries face two problems when it comes to acquiring this information. First, firms do not have incentives to share information. Information constitutes part of competitive advantage, and sharing it may weaken competitiveness. Second, type of information is often absent, lacking, or underutilized. There is no clear mapping of available resources or activities that are actually profitable. Discovery is costly, and chances of export survival are lower. This note focuses on the role of information in the survival of Georgias exports, unveiling a robust association between product-specific and destination-specific information and export survival. These results suggest that there are gains to be made through fostering greater inter-firm dialogue - especially dialogue that generates market- and product specific information to increase the changes of exports survival in Georgia.
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Resumen 88992 JUN 01, 2014
Reyes, Jose-Daniel; Varela, Gonzalo; McKenna, Miles
Emerging market economies (EMEs) are making important strides in developing long-term finance capital market vehicles to support investment in strategic areas such as infrastructure.
... Vea más + However, since last year, EMEs have suffered from big shifts in terms of market sentiment. While EMEs prospects were clearly overhyped in the wake of the crisis, the bleak forecasts that dominated headlines in the second half of last year were similarly exaggerated. There are still a number of factors indicating that EMEs role in the global economy will continue to grow, just not as rapidly or dramatically as previously thought.
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This paper focuses on the institutional arrangements needed for facilitating regional electricity cooperation. The paper begins by discussing the theory of international trade cooperation in electricity, with a view to discussing what preconditions might be important in facilitating wide area trading across national borders.
... Vea más + It then discusses two sets of case studies. The first set focuses on three regional developing country power pools -- the Southern African Power Pool, the West African Power Pool, and the Central American Power Market. The second set focuses on three regional power pools in more developed countries -- one in the United States, the Single Electricity Market in Ireland, and the South East Europe market. These cases highlight the potential and difficulty of having cross-jurisdictional power pools. In the light of the theory and evidence presented, key lessons are drawn in the areas of preconditions for trading, necessary institutional arrangements, practicalities of timetabling, reasons to be hopeful about future prospects, and suggestions for future research.
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Documento de trabajo sobre investigaciones relativas a políticas WPS6947 JUN 01, 2014
Some of the headings included in this issue of the Development Economics Prospects Group (DECPG) daily economics and financial market commentary newsletter are as follows: financial markets; high-income economies; developing economies in East Asia and Pacific, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Some of the headings included in this issue of the Development Economics Prospects Group (DECPG) daily economics and financial market commentary newsletter are as follows: financial markets; high-income economies; and developing economies in East Asia and Pacific and Europe and Central Asia.
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Some of the headings included in this issue of the Development Economics Prospects Group (DECPG) daily economics and financial market commentary newsletter are as follows: financial markets; high-income economies; and developing economies in East Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
... Vea más +Ver menos -
Some of the headings included in this issue of the Development Economics Prospects Group (DECPG) daily economics and financial market commentary newsletter are as follows: financial markets; high-income economies; and developing economies in East Asia and Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa.
... Vea más +Ver menos -
Some of the headings included in this issue of the Development Economics Prospects Group (DECPG) daily economics and financial market commentary newsletter are as follows: financial markets; high-income economies; and developing economies in East Asia and Pacific, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
... Vea más +Ver menos -
Some of the headings included in this issue of the Development Economics Prospects Group (DECPG) daily economics and financial market commentary newsletter are as follows: financial markets; high-income economies; and developing economies in East Asia and Pacific.
... Vea más +Ver menos -