The City of Ulaanbaatar (UB) is
undergoing a historic transformation toward market-driven
urban development. This growth remains strongly influenced
by city policy decisions that affect the supply and location
of land for public and private uses. Private investment is
concentrated in well-serviced land located in the central
portion of the city and along major transportation
corridors, which represent a small part of the total built

In this issue: Facilitating labor
migration from the Philippines; Incentives and teacher
effort; Electoral accountability and local public spending
in Indonesia; Why don't poor countries do R&D?; How
effective are efforts to raise voluntary enrollment in
health insurance?; How insecure property rights affect
migration in China; the challenges of public service
delivery in the Pacific Islands.

Previous research on sex-selective
abortions has ignored the interactions between fertility,
birth spacing, and sex selection, despite both fertility and
birth spacing being important considerations for parents
when deciding on the use of sex selection. This paper
presents a novel approach that jointly estimates the
determinants of sex-selective abortions, fertility, and
birth spacing, using data on Hindu women from India's

This study estimates marginal increase
in malnutrition for children ages 1-3 years from exposure to
an extreme shock in the West African Sahel. The study uses
knowledge of a child's birth and high resolution
spatial and temporal distribution of shocks, calculated from
the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index and
satellite-based measures of rainfall and temperature to link
a child to the shock experienced in-utero. The study finds

To find out why African countries' experience with urbanization and sustained growth appeared to differ from that of other countries, the authors investigated the determinants of urbanization across countries over 40 years. Rather than studying individuals' decisions to migrate, they relied on macroeconomic data and cross-country comparisons. A central hypothesis of their study: that individuals move (with varying degrees of ease) in response to economic incentives and opportunities. If location incentives are distorted, so is growth.

Le présent arrêté, en application de l’article 4 de l’arrêté interministériel portant modalité d’application du décret 2014-205 du 13 mars 2014, définit les formulaires administratifs à utiliser pour la demande de permis de construire et les demandes de certificat d’urbanisme. Met en oeuvre: Décret n° 2014-205 du 13 mars 2014 portant réglementation de la délivrance du permis de construire en République du Bénin. (2014-03-13)

Poverty reduction is the overarching
objective of the World Bank Group and is reflected in the
institution s commitment to the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs). More recently, the twin goals of the institution,
eradicating extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared
prosperity, expressed a renewed commitment toward the Bank
Group s vision of a world free of poverty. This message is
intimately related to another main goal of the institution:

Iraq appears to have firmly entered the
ranks of upper middle-income countries in 2012, having
experienced strong economic growth following the
establishment of a civilian elected government in 2005-06.
In 2012 the years of growth culminated in a per capita GDP
of 2472 constant 2005 US$. This three-volume poverty and
inclusion assessment provides the first in-depth analysis of
Iraq's economic and social development during the

This Decision approves the adjustment of the master plan on socio-economic development of Tien Giang province through 2020, with a vision toward 2030, with the following principal contents: Tien Giang province's socio-economic development must be in line with the development orientations of the country, Mekong River delta and southern key economic region; and ensure the consistency and harmony with the regions' socio-economic development master plans and sectoral master plans in the overall relationship and linkage with provinces in an open economic space with foreign countries.

Himachal Pradesh has the reputation of
being stable, inclusive, cohesive and well-governed and it
stands apart in many respects from its neighbors in northern
India. It has additionally, achieved remarkable growth,
especially in the last two decades, which has been
accompanied by very good human development outcomes. Despite
being a predominantly rural society, educational attainment
in Himachal Pradesh for instance, is among the best in the

The world's urban population is
expected to increase by about 2.7 billion by
2050.Virtually all of the increased population
will be in developing countries, leading to massive needs
for new and improved housing and urban infrastructures
(UNDESA 2012). The planning and design of these new
developments will reshape or create new urban landscapes
with significant implications for energy consumption,

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