The dominant hypothesis in the
literature that studies conflict is that poverty is the main
cause of civil wars. The authors instead analyze the effect
of institutions on civil war, controlling for income per
capita. In their set up, institutions are endogenous and
colonial origins affect civil wars through their legacy on
institutions. Their results indicate that institutions,
proxied by the protection of property rights, rule of law

The current assessment builds on
previously published reviews of poverty reduction strategy
programs (PRSPs), and is the sixth report in a series. This
paper aims at presenting a clearer picture of how PRSPs
influence the developmental agenda in 11 African countries
by assessing the level of environmental mainstreaming in the
Poverty Reduction Strategy Process. The paper includes the
following headings: introduction; framework for assessment;

The authors compare the welfare effects of in situ slum upgrading programs with programs that provide slum dwellers with better housing in a new location. Evaluating the welfare effects of slum upgrading and resettlement programs requires estimating models of residential location choice, in which households trade off commuting costs against the cost and attributes of the housing they consume, including neighborhood attributes. The authors accomplish this using data for 5,000 households in Mumbai, a city in which 40 percent of the population live in slums.

The environment and security literature
has argued that freshwater scarcity often leads to
inter-state conflict, and possibly acute violence. The
contention, however, ignores the long history of
hydro-political cooperation exemplified by hundreds of
documented agreements. Building on a theory that considers
the relationship between scarcity and hydro-political
cooperation, this paper empirically investigates why

This paper starts with a brief
perspective on urban transport in developing countries,
followed by a detailed presentation of an overall framework
for making projects in this sector. Additional details on
cities and projects used as case studies are given in the
accompanying tables. The challenge for the Bank is to assist
client cities in providing transport infrastructure and
services that respond to demographic, spatial and economic

Firms in Africa report "regulatory
and economic policy uncertainty" as a top constraint to
their growth. This paper argues that often firms in Africa
do not cope with policy rules, rather they face deals:
firm-specific policy actions that can be influenced by firm
actions (such as bribes) and characteristics (such as
political connections). Using Enterprise Survey data, the
paper demonstrates huge variability in reported policy

This note introduces an evolutionary
approach to economic and governance reform. It lays out two
especially prevalent trajectories that differ starkly from
one another in how they prioritize and sequence economic
growth, state building, and the development of civil society
and political institutions. The first trajectory focuses
initially on investments in state capacity. The second
initially prioritizes smaller, more catalytic entry points

This paper uses a growth diagnostics
approach à la Hausmann, Rodrik, and Velasco (HRV) to
identify the most 'binding' constraints to private
sector growth in Mongolia - a small, low-income,
mineral-rich, transition economy. The approach of applying
the HRV methodology is useful in those cases where a lack of
data prevents us from estimating shadow prices to identify
the most 'binding' constraint to growth. We find

Costa Rica's Program of Payments
for Environmental Services (Pago de Servicios Ambientales,
PSA) provides a unique opportunity to evaluate direct
payments as a conservation policy tool. This paper reports
evidence on how much more forest has been conserved in Costa
Rica as a result of PSA contracts with landowners. Such
evidence requires estimating a counterfactual outcome: how
much forest would have been preserved if there had been no

This study assesses the development
effectiveness of World Bank assistance in addressing
constraints to agricultural development in Africa over the
period of fiscal years 1991-2006. This Independent
Evaluation Group (IEG) review of World Bank assistance to
agriculture in Africa has a twofold purpose. First, it is a
pilot for the proposed IEG study on Bank-wide assistance in
agriculture scheduled for fiscal year 2009. Second, the

Carbon transactions are defined as purchase contracts or ERPAs (Emission Reductions Purchase Agreements) whereby one party pays another party in return for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions that the buyer can use to meet its compliance or corporate citizenship - objectives vis-a-vis GHG mitigation. Payment is made using one or more of the following forms: cash, equity, debt, or in-kind contributions.

Yemen is the second poorest country in
the Middle East and North Africa region, with 42 percent of
its population counted as poor in 1998. GDP has stagnated at
around US$530 per capita in real terms since 2002.
Unemployment, estimated at 11.5 percent in 1999, is expected
to have worsened as the population has climbed at 3 percent
a year and the labor force has burgeoned. Extreme gender
inequalities persist. Malnutrition is so severe that Yemeni