Deeper regional integration can be
beneficial especially for regions along international
borders. It can open up new markets on opposite sides of
borders and give consumers wider access to cheaper goods.
This paper uses data from five contiguous districts of
India, Nepal, and Bangladesh in the northeast of the
subcontinent to measure the degrees of trade complementarity
between districts. The paper illustrates that the regions

This study seeks to examine how
National Rural Livelihoods Mission or NRLM may be leveraged
to improve food and nutrition security (FNS) in tribal
areas, preferably in a manner that would enhance the
effectiveness of the program's core livelihoods focus.
More broadly, the objective is to strengthen the capacity of
the Government of India (GoI) to deliver (or support)
effective FNS interventions in tribal and backward areas

Real gross domestic product (GDP)
expanded by 6.7 percent in 2013, a modest deceleration from
the 7 percent recorded in the previous year, but well above
the average 4.9 percent rate of growth recorded over the
last ten years. The economy benefited from strong growth in
the agriculture (rebounding from last year's drought),
mining and services sectors, which largely offset weaker
activity in fishing activity. A continuation of these

Nonseparable household models outline
the links between agricultural production and household
consumption, yet empirical extensions to investigate the
effect of production on dietary diversity and diet
composition are limited. Although a significant literature
has investigated the calorie-income elasticity abstracting
from production, this paper provides an empirical
application of the nonseparable household model linking the

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
(MEA), The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity study
(TEEB) and the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity
and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) provide a comprehensive and
useful framework to understand human dependence on ecosystem
services and how best to protect these services in
perpetuity. In these three authoritative studies, payment
for ecosystem services (PES) is listed as one of the

This issue of the Cambodia economic
update covers the following selected issues: 1) making the
most of the Cambodian rise sector; and 2) creating
opportunities for firms as reflected in findings from the
investment climate assessment. For FY2014 economic growth
held up well despite domestic uncertainty and instability in
neighboring countries. Real growth is estimated to reach 7.2
percent, driven by the garment, construction, and services

Is Africa's rural economy
transforming as its economies grow? This paper uses
comparable income aggregates from 41 national household
surveys from 22 countries to explore the extent of income
diversification among rural households in Sub-Saharan
Africa, and to look at how income diversification in
Sub-Saharan Africa compares with other regions, taking into
account differences in levels of development. The paper also

This report is the most recent in a
series aimed at monitoring economic developments in Ghana
and has two sections. The first section summarizes the
recent macroeconomic developments in the country while the
second section presents the main findings on poverty and
employment published recently by the Ghana statistical
service. Ghana s overall macroeconomic conditions have
deteriorated further in 2014 with large twin-deficits

Myanmar is a low-income agrarian country
with a high poverty rate. The livelihood of many poor people
depends on the performance of agriculture, especially the
rice sector. Rice accounts for 70 percent of Myanmar s total
cultivated area and 30 percent of the value of its
agricultural production. Increasing returns to rice
production will be the key to increasing farm wages and
incomes in the short to medium run. Higher rice production

This forest policy note (FPN) offers
an outside view of the Moldovan forestry sector, provides
some strategic guidance to help define sector goals, and
identifies opportunities for consideration in the continued
development of the sector and for the implementation of the
Moldova and World Bank (WB) country partnership strategy
(CPS). This study is based on a number of short visits to
Moldova and on a number of background studies undertaken

Gross domestic product (GDP) growth was
a disappointing 3.5 percent in 2013. It remained largely
unchanged compared to 2012, reflecting a decline in cereal
production and stagnation in the industrial sector. Services
continue to drive the economy. The economic outlook for 2014
was more positive, but poor rainfall and the Ebola outbreak
have forced downward revisions in GDP growth projections,
now expected to reach 4.5 percent. The plan Senegal emergent

Inorganic fertilizer use across
Sub-Saharan Africa is generally considered to be low. Yet,
this belief is predicated on the assumption that it is
profitable to use rates higher than currently observed.
However, there is little rigorous empirical evidence to
support this notion. Using a nationally representative panel
data set, and with due recognition of the role of risk and
uncertainty, this paper empirically estimates the