Brazil's GDP performance has been lackluster since the post-crisis rebound in 2010. Prospects for 2013 look a little better: unemployment rates have remained low, and data from the first quarter of the year suggest improving growth rates. Investment also rose ahead of consumption, which may indicate a more balanced growth...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is taking a new look at Sovereign Debt Restructuring. There are at least two major reasons for this: First, it is expected that official creditors play a unique role during sovereign debt crises, since lending of last resort becomes the only bridge over...

Despite tremendous progress in poverty reduction over the last two decades, poverty still persists. Along with South Asia, Africa is a region where large numbers of people continue to live in extreme poverty. It is also a region where there is clearly room for higher foreign trade levels...

The Chinese economy has changed dramatically over the last three decades. While its per-capita income was only a third of that of Sub-Saharan Africa in 1978, it has now reached an upper-middle income status, lifting more than half a billion people out of poverty. The numbers are dramatic: per capita...

If the global financial crisis -- and the events that led up to it -- have taught us anything, it is, "No complacency with asset price booms." We know firsthand the dire consequences of bubbles, so it is clear monetary policy makers can no longer passively observe the evolution of...

Spring in D.C. draws more than just tourists. Last week, government officials, policy makers, civil society representatives and other thought leaders converged to take stock of the global economy during the IMF-World Bank spring meetings. The tone in the hallways was optimistic, but cautious. Growth in advanced economies still remains...

Decentralization in many countries has given subnational governments certain spending responsibilities, revenue-raising authority, and the capacity to incur debt. Furthermore, rapid urbanization in developing countries is requiring large-scale infrastructure financing to help absorb influxes of rural populations. Not surprisingly, the subnational debt market in some developing countries has been going...

Thomas Friedman's bestseller The World Is Flat highlights the strong forces pushing the world towards a single economic platform. The technology-fueled globalization in the provision of services, and the widespread organization of production processes as global value chains are part of his narrative. The revolutionary potential...

The world has become relatively less poor in the last few decades. People under conditions of extreme poverty -- that is, living on less than $1.25 per day -- have declined as a proportion of the world population, from 52 percent in 1981 to 22 percent in 2008....

Brazil's success in reducing poverty and income inequality has been widely reported in recent years. What is less known is that there has also been progress in lessening gender inequality in the past two decades. Illiteracy rates for women 15 years old and above came down from 20.3...

WB President Jim Yong Kim's recent Washington Post op-ed "Make Climate Change a Priority" warned that "global warming imperils all of the development gains we have made." Jim Kim drew on a recent World Bank report that points to the possibility for global temperatures to rise by 4...

As the Carnival in Brazil kicked off last weekend, Brazilians were ready for a party. They have reasons to celebrate. Despite a lackluster GDP performance in the last two years, unemployment rates remain at record low levels. Poverty rates and income inequality have diminished steadily now for more...

I'm sure I'm not the only one who uses my mobile phone for almost everything but to make a call. Thanks to technological advances and the explosion of social media, we text, tweet or post to Facebook on our devices. But beyond mere communications tools, mobile phones are also crucial...

In recent weeks, fiscal policy -- once the domain of policy wonks -- has become part of dinner-table conversations. As Washington attempts to put its fiscal house in order, catchy metaphors from "fiscal cliff" to "fiscal calamity" to "austerity bomb" (and even "hostage crisis") permeate the media. Amidst the media...

In practice, theory is something else. I've already heard variants of this expression in several countries and languages. Very often from people referring to the gap between abstract, generic principles and the implementation of projects and policies.

As World Bank President Jim Kim has recently remarked, "Many countries...

Almost 20 years ago, the World Bank released a groundbreaking report -- The East Asian Miracle -- that called worldwide attention to the economic success of eight economies in the region, leading to a discussion on the extent to which policies followed by them could be replicated. In a...

The World Bank has been tracking the world progress against poverty since the late '80s, but the release of 2008 data was the first time in which all regions of the developing world showed a decline in the number of people living below poverty lines! Furthermore, that phenomenon had happened...

Last May, in China, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy remarked:

"The global economy is being transformed at an unprecedented speed and at the heart of that transformation is the services economy. ... Services underpin every part of the production process, from research and development to design, engineering, financing,...

Whether it is in the U.S. presidential election campaign or as a result of the debt crisis in Europe, people on both sides of the Atlantic are debating the role of the state. Do we need more government or less of it? Do we want more public services provided by...

The global financial crisis has reversed an expansionary trend of international activities by banks from advanced countries that had been at play for decades. From the late 1970s to 2008, banks not only found new opportunities for intermediation in increasing cross-border capital flows, but they also raised their profile in...