The Government of Benin has requested an
update of the 2005 Diagnostic Trade Integration Study and
has asked the World Bank to take the leading role in this
exercise. The update’s objectives are to (a) take stock of
progress in the mainstreaming of trade in the government’s
national development strategy and of implementation of the
Action Matrix recommendations; (b) complement and deepen the
analysis in selected areas; and (c) revise and update the

This paper uses farm panel data from
China to examine the dynamics of land transactions, machine
investments, and the demand for machine services. Recently,
China's agriculture has experienced a large expansion
of machine rentals and machine services provided by
specialized agents, which has contributed to mechanization
of agricultural production. The empirical results show that
an increase in nonagricultural wage rates leads to expansion

After years of strong performance in the
run-up to the European Union (EU) accession, Bulgaria’s
growth has slowed down and poverty remains the highest in
the EU. Bulgaria achieved the highest recorded growth rates
between 2000-08 on the back of exceptionally high capital
inflows, structural reforms, sound fiscal management and the
prospects of EU accession. Employment boomed and poverty
fell steeply. Since 2008 – the year of global economic

This report is the culmination of a
cross-African countries analytical and empirical study
commissioned by the World Bank, which set out to improve the
understanding of the characteristics and environmental,
economic, and social performances of small-scale fisheries
in Africa. It applies a common evaluation tool, called
Fishery Performance Indicators (FPIs), which evaluates the
ecological, social, and economic performances of a

This program document presents the World
Bank Group (WBG) FY17-22 Country Partnership Framework (CPF)
for Bulgaria. The timing of the new CPF follows the
preparation of theSystematic Country Diagnostic (SCD)
prepared in FY15, and informs the areas and objectives ofthe
CPF in support of the WBG’s twin goals to reduce poverty and
boost shared prosperity1 for the bottom forty percent of the
population. The CPF proposes to focus WBG support in

In Zimbabwe trade has been a driver of economic growth, rising incomes, and progressive empowerment of Zimbabweans through rising standards of living and the promise of better jobs. Since 1980, through good years and bad years, increases in exports have been positively associated with increases in national income. Zimbabwe's location and resource base, together with a low-cost but relatively well educated labor force, have endowed it with a naturally high trade ratio built on a diversified base that facilitates using trade as an engine of growth.

The report Africa Can Help Feed Africa
(World Bank 2012) showed that increasing food staples1
supply can be met by better connecting African markets to
each other. That report called for a stronger focus on
removing trade barriers and building on the forces of
regional integration. This report builds on the lessons of
Africa Can Help Feed Africa by looking into the specific
circum¬stances met in West Africa, home to one-third of the

This report focuses on two competing forces: the Soviet industrial legacy and

This paper decomposes the gender gap in
pay in the Russian Federation along the earnings
distribution for the period 1996–2011. The analysis uses a
reweighted, recentered influence function decomposition that
allows estimating the contribution of each covariate on the
wage structure and composition effects along the earnings
distribution. The paper finds that women are in flat career
paths compared with men; the importance of observable

Although weather shocks are a major
source of income fluctuation, most of the world's poor
lack insurance coverage against them. Absence of formal
insurance contributes to poverty traps, as investment
decisions are conflicted with risk management ones:
risk-averse farmers tend to underinvest and produce lower
yielding yet safer crops. In the past few years, weather
index insurance has gained increasing attention as an

The inability to unlock natural resource
wealth for the benefit of developing countries’ local
populations, a phenomenon popularly known as the ‘resource
curse’ or the ‘paradox of plenty’, has spawned extensive
debate among researchers and policy makers in recent years.
There is now a well-established body of literature exploring
the links between natural resources and conflict, with some
sources estimating that over the past 60 years, 40 percent

Climate change will have its largest
impacts on developing countries, with poor populations
particularly hard hit and unable to adequately adapt. There
is an opportunity for developing countries to pursue a
complementary approach, emphasizing building up the
capabilities of local firms to participate in the business
opportunities surrounding climate change. Climate change
therefore represents an opportunity for developing countries