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

In view of its increasing importance,
and the dearth of information on return migration and its
impacts on source households, this study uses data from the
2005 Albania Living Standards Measurement Study survey and
assesses the impact of past migration experience of Albanian
households on non-farm business ownership through
instrumental variables regression techniques. Moreover,
considering the differences in earning potentials and

This report has the following
objectives: (i) identify the underlying constraints to
strong and sustained growth, in particular, the dynamic
circles that lock Niger in a low-growth/high poverty
equilibrium; (ii) understand the key determinants of growth
and poverty traps and the role increased foreign aid could
play to promote growth and help achieve the
MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs); and (iii) help

This IEG evaluation brings a fresh
perspective to the debate by assessing the development
effectiveness of the Bank's recent work. It presents
evidence -- including views from the client countries
themselves -- about the outcomes of the Bank's support
to individual countries over the past 12 years. It also
spotlights three growing dimensions of the Bank Group's
role -- sharing knowledge across countries, engaging

The objective of the Botswana Investment
Climate Assessment (ICA) is to evaluate the investment
climate in Botswana in all its operational dimensions and
promote policies to strengthen the private sector. The
investment climate is made up of the many location specific
factors that shape the opportunities and incentives for
firms to invest productively, create jobs, and expand. These
factors include macroeconomic and regulatory policies; the

This Public Expenditure Review (PER) builds on the commitments of the 2003 Country Economic Memorandum (CEM), and 2002 Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) Progress Report, being its primary objective to assess strengths and weaknesses in key areas of public expenditure, and identify policy options for fiscal sustainability. Jamaica's high debt aggravates debt sustainability and efforts to improve growth. Revenue performance is also a weak element in the country's overall fiscal framework, while the current level of public sector investment is too low to support strong sustained growth.

The authors examine the impact of growth
of key policy and institutional reforms: macroeconomic
stabilization, trade liberalization, deregulation of
finance, privatization, deregulation of utilities,
modernization of the public sector with a view to increasing
its effectiveness and accountability, and the spread of
democracy and decentralization. They draw lessons both from
a policy and institutional perspective and from the

The 2005 Tanzania poverty and social impact analysis (PSIA) on local government tax reform was designed to examine the intended and unintended consequences on poverty reduction and growth in Tanzania of the tax reforms implemented in June 2003 and 2004. The main elements of the reform were the abolition of the flat rate development levy in 2003 along with nuisance taxes, and the abolition of business license fees for enterprises below a certain size and capping of those fees for larger enterprises in 2004.

The provision of public goods and the amelioration of market failure are the classical justifications for government intervention in the economy. In reality, (1) governments intervene in markets that are not affected by failure, and (2) a large share of the government resources is spent in private goods, not in public goods. In contrast to issue 1, issue 2 has received little attention in the literature, in spite of the potentially large efficiency and equity losses arising from misguided allocations of public expenditures.

In recent years, the countries of Europe
and Central Asia (ECA) have experienced a marked decline in
investments by international private operators/investors in
local infrastructure-much in line with the trend observed in
other emerging markets. This decline has been particularly
significant in the local water and energy sectors. In light
of the increasingly tight fiscal constraints faced by
governments across ECA, there is a strong need to develop

Afghanistan has come a long way since
emerging from major conflict in late 2001. Important
political milestones mandated by the Bonn Agreement (two
Loya Jirgas, a new Constitution, recently the Presidential
election) have been achieved. The economy has recovered
strongly, growing by nearly 50 percent cumulatively in the
last two years (not including drugs). Some three million
internally- and externally-displaced Afghans have returned

The conclusions of the recently-conducted Kenya Investment Climate Assessment (ICA), based on a survey of 368 firms, have a bearing on the country's growth agenda. The results have a bearing on the key issue of labor productivity and its implications on firm performance, revealing that capital-intensity in Kenya was relatively high, compared to the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and also to firms in China and India, but also relatively less productive.