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After a steady improvement in the fiscal position over the past decade, the standoff over clearance revenues has severely constrained the PA budget, leading to a significant expansion in expenditure arrears. Going forward, however, uncertainty about a resolution for the clearance revenue standoff will weigh on the economy. Over the last two decades, the Palestinian economy has been driven by large inflows of transfers as other sources of growth have been long-hindered by the ongoing Israeli restrictions on movement and access. Under a baseline scenario which assumes a continuation of the Israeli restrictions, persistence of the internal divide between the West Bank and Gaza and a decline in aid levels, the Palestinian economy is expected to slip into a recession in 2020 and 2021, even if additional, one-off transfers from clearance revenues are made. As financial buffers are depleted, the reduced revenues will require sizable cuts in public spending, which in turn would translate in reduced consumption and investment. The decline in growth implies a sizable decline in real per capita income and a rise in poverty. The Palestinian financial sector continues to face substantial risks against the backdrop of the fiscal crisis. The negative impact of the deepening fiscal crisis on the quality of loan portfolios across the banking sector has started to materialize as both non-performing loans and classified loans have been on an upward trajectory. With the severe liquidity shortage facing the PA, it has resorted to domestic banks to finance its needs raising the sector’s exposure to the PA for the first time in a number of years. Banks are also rescheduling outstanding loans held by PA employees who are receiving a reduced salary, compounding the destabilizing effect on the sector. However, the fact that the PA is simultaneously building up an asset in the form of tax revenues not received from the GoI ameliorates the situation as the increased exposure may be seen as a temporary trend. Another cause of concern is a possible disruption in Correspondent Banking Relationships (CBRs) between Palestinian banks and their Israeli counterparts due to de-risking by Israeli banks. The immunity and indemnity package given by the GoI to banks with CBRs are set to expire in May 2020 and February 2021, respectively, when a longer term and more sustainable intervention is expected to be in place. While resolving the fiscal crisis is an immediate priority there remains a broader reform agenda to improve the economy and Palestinian living standards.

This paper assesses the relation between access to markets and cultivated land in Sub-Saharan Africa. Making use of a geo-referenced panel over three decades (1970-2005) during which the road network was significantly improved, the analysis finds a modest but significant positive association between increased market accessibility and local cropland expansion. It also finds that cropland expansion, in turn, is associated with a small but significant increase in local gross domestic product. These results are suggestive of agricultural activities that develop at the extensive margin, which are mostly to serve local demand, but are not indicative of commercial agriculture that serves external markets.

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) has maintained its momentum in regulation and supervision in the face of exceptional growth in scale and increasing complexity of the banking system. Equally, the CBRC has risen to the demands of the international regulatory reform agenda, delivering timely revisions to its body of regulations and maturing its supervisory practices through investing in essential new skills, enhancing methodologies, and broadening its interactions with the industry. In this context, the clarity of supervisory requirements and expectations communicated to the industry is a strength of the CBRC. Recent organizational reforms, in 2015, building on other internal reforms, will serve the CBRC well in delivering its supervisory mandate. While pursuit of financial stability is recognized as fundamentally important, concerns must be acknowledged as to whether the CBRC would, in practice, always be able to act on its primary, stability, objective, especially if government policies, whether focused growth and expansion, or social protection, conflicted with prudential considerations. The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) has achieved a high degree of compliance with the Basel Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision (BCPs). Notwithstanding the revision to the BCP methodology, which raised the standards expected of supervisory authorities, the CBRC has demonstrated progress in almost all areas. Nevertheless, further maturing is needed, and taken together the recommendations of this report seek to support the CBRC in developing deeper and more comprehensive diagnostic capabilities, which ought to facilitate early, effective and preventative actions as necessary. It is essential that the CBRC’s achievements in recent years are consolidated as new challenges and complexities in the system will continue to emerge. In particular, it is essential that the CBRC obtain the resources to expand its range and depth of skills before developments in the industry leave it unable to maintain meaningful oversight and authority, not least of the four Global Systemically Important Banks (GSIBs). Building on the supervisory vision expressed in prestige CBRC publications such as the Annual Report, a detailed forward strategy for supervision, covering three to five years, would serve as a vehicle for the CBRC to articulate its case for resources.

This paper presents results from a large (43,387) nationwide randomized controlled trial in Guatemala that used reminders to promote tax compliance. The trial varied the letter received by taxpayers (individuals and firms) who had failed to pay their income tax for the 2013 tax year. Taxpayers were randomly allocated to receive either no letter, the letter originally used by the Guatemalan Tax Authority, or four letter variants adapted using behavioral design. The study finds that although all letters increased the rate of declaration, only two of the letters were successful at increasing the rate of payment and the average amount paid per letter received. The best performing treatments were a deterrent message framing non-declaration as an intentional and deliberate choice, rather than oversight (designed to overcome status quo bias), and a social norms message that referred to the 64.5 percent of taxpayers that had already paid this tax (join the status quo). These two interventions increased the rate of payment as well as the average amount paid conditional on paying, overall more than tripling tax receipts. The paper estimates that if sent to all taxpayers in the sample, in 11 weeks the social norms letter would have generated additional tax revenues of approximately US$760,000, which is 36 times the cost of sending the letters. The effects are persistent and remain at 12 month follow up, suggesting the letters are effective in increasing revenue for the tax authority rather than just bringing tax receipts forward.

Financial regulation affects government revenue whenever it imposes both the mandatory quantity and price of government bonds. This paper studies a banking regulation adopted by the National Bank of Ethiopia in April 2011, which forces all private banks to purchase a fixed negative-yield government bond in proportion to private sector lending. Having access to monthly bank balance sheets, a survey of branch costs and public finances documentation, the effect of the policy on government revenue can be tracked. This is compared to three plausible revenue-generating alternatives: raising funds at competitive rates on international markets; distorting the private lending of the state-owned bank; and raising new deposits through additional branches of the state-owned bank. Three main results emerge: the government revenue gain is moderate (1.5-2.6 percent of the tax revenue); banks comply with the policy and amass more safe assets; banks' profit growth slows without turning negative (from 10 percent to 2 percent).

The paper investigates the relevance of the exchange rate on the reaction function of the central banks of 24 emerging market economies for the period 2000Q1 to 2015Q2. This is done by first employing fixed-effects ordinary least squares and then system generalized method of the moments techniques. Under fixed effects, the exchange rate is found to be an important determinant in the reaction function of emerging market economies. Allowing for the endogeneity of inflation, output gap, and exchange rate, the exchange rate remains a positive and significant determinant, but less quantitatively relevant across inflation-targeting countries. When the sample is partitioned into targeting and nontargeting countries, the exchange rate remains relevant in the reaction function of the latter group. The results remain robust to splitting the sample at the time of the financial crisis of 2007–09 and suggest that, after the crisis, the central banks of emerging market economies responded only to inflation movements in the interest rate reaction function.

Benign financing conditions since the global financial crisis and, more recently, rising financing needs have fueled a rapid increase in credit to the nonfinancial private sector, especially to the corporate sector, in emerging markets and developing economies. Credit growth has been most pronounced, and nearing the pace associated with past credit booms, in commodity exporting countries. In contrast, in commodity importers, credit-to-gross domestic product ratios are elevated but have been stable or shrinking over the past few years. That said, in a few, mostly energy exporting, emerging and developing countries, credit to the private sector is now near levels that have been associated with past episodes of financial stress.

Over the past decade, donors of foreign aid quadrupled their annual contributions to trust funds at the World Bank. This earmarking of contributions to donors' preferred recipient countries and issues has raised concerns about the alignment of trust funds with the performance-based allocations of aid by the International Development Association, the World Bank's concessional lending arm, and raises the question of the role of this new "multi-bi" aid channel. This study finds that the cross-country allocations of aggregate trust fund aid are poverty- and policy-selective. In this respect, they are much more similar to allocations from the International Development Association than from bilateral donors. The allocations of trust fund types that are more closely controlled by donor countries—recipient-executed and single-donor trust funds—are more strongly related to the strategic interests of donor countries than trust fund aid in general. Trust funds for health and education aid are poverty selective and positively correlated with the World Bank's assessment of the quality of countries' sector policies, while environmental trust funds are neither poverty selective nor correlated with the assessed quality of countries' environmental policies. Overall, the evidence indicates that multi-bi funds administered by the World Bank do not undermine the International Development Association’s allocation criteria.

This paper presents a systematic analysis of the availability and use of fiscal space in emerging and developing economies. These economies built fiscal space in the run-up to the Great Recession of 2008-09, which was then used for stimulus. This reflects a more general trend over the past three decades, where availability of fiscal space has been associated with increasingly countercyclical (or less procyclical) fiscal policy. However, fiscal space has shrunk since the Great Recession and has not returned to pre-crisis levels. Emerging and developing economies face downside risks to growth and prospects of rising financing costs. In the event that these cause a sharp cyclical slowdown, policy makers may need to employ fiscal policy as a possible tool for stimulus. An important prerequisite for fiscal policy to be effective is that these economies have the necessary fiscal space to employ countercyclical policies. Over the medium-term, credible and well-designed institutional arrangements, such as fiscal rules, stabilization funds, and medium-term expenditure frameworks, can help build fiscal space and strengthen policy outcomes.

This paper develops a multi-sector, small open economy Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model, which includes the accumulation of human capital, built via public expenditures in education and health. Four possible fiscal rules are examined for total public investment in infrastructure, education, and health in the context of a sustainable resource fund: the spend-as-you-go, bird-in-hand spending; moderate front-loading, and permanent income hypothesis approaches. There are two dimensions to this exercise: the scaling effect, which describes the level of total investment, and the composition effect, which defines the structure of investment between infrastructure, education, and health. The model is applied to Kenya. For impacts on the non-resource economy, efficiency of spending, and sustainability of fiscal outcomes, the analysis finds that, although investment frontloading would bring high growth in the short term, the permanent income hypothesis approach is overall more desirable when fiscal sustainability concerns are taken into consideration. Finally, a balanced composition is the preferred structure of investment, given the permanent income hypothesis allocation of total investment over time.

In many countries safety nets consist predominantly of universal subsidies on food and fuel. A key question for policy makers willing to shift to targeted safety nets is under what conditions middle-class citizens would be supportive of redistributive programs. Results from a behavioral experiment based on a nationally representative sample in Jordan reveal that increasing transparency in benefit delivery makes middle-class citizens (particularly among the youth and low-trust individuals) more willing to forgo their own welfare to benefit the poor. Moreover, increasing transparency enhances the relative support for cash-based safety nets, which have greater impact on poverty compared with in-kind transfers, but may be perceived as more prone to elite capture.

The Lao economy is estimated to have expanded by around 7 percent in 2015, a slight moderation from 7.5 percent in 2014. Similar to the last decade, the resource sectors (hydropower and extractives) continued to make an important contribution to growth. Power generation got a boost from the commissioning of the first two blocks of the 1,878 MW Hongsa lignite power plant and an additional 250-300 MW of installed capacity in the hydro sector. Furthermore, despite lower global commodity prices, mining output still increased as metal prices remained above the mines’ cost recovery levels. The revised State Budget Law, approved in December 2015, enhances the authority of the National Assembly in budget oversight and Ministry of Finance in budget management. In addition, with regards to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing, the Government strengthened key regulations (including on forfeiture of assets, border declaration, penalties for non-compliant entities) recommended by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which helped remove Lao PDR from the FATF’s list of ‘jurisdictions not making sufficient progress’. The outlook will depend on the progress in the implementation of the recommendations and agreed measures. GDP is expected to expand at around 7 percent per annum as a healthy pipeline in the power sector keeps investments strong and increases electricity production and exports by almost 40 percent. Stabilization of growth rates in China and some acceleration in Vietnam and Thailand should increase demand for Lao PDR exports. On the other hand, some gradual fiscal consolidation is expected, largely through broadening the revenue base and efforts to improve efficiency in spending and should help strengthen the outlook for public debt sustainability and lower the risk of debt distress from its current level of moderate, but borderline to high.

This report consists of two parts: Part 1 presents a review of recent economic developments and a macroeconomic outlook. Part 2 focuses in greater depth on a special, selected topic relevant to Malawi's development prospects. This report focuses on agricultural risk management. Malawi is now set to suffer a second year of poor harvests due to the effects of a drought that is sweeping Southern Africa. This drought has had a serious impact both on the economy and on food security, requiring a major humanitarian response. The current situation underscores Malawi's serious need to improve the resilience of the agricultural sector and to develop a better system of risk management. With the country expected to continue to face climate-induced shocks into the future, it is vital that the Government considers how best to mitigate the impact of such shocks. In 2015 Malawi recorded a GDP growth rate of just 2.8 percent, with this low rate the result of both adverse weather conditions and macroeconomic instability. Flooding in southern districts followed by a countrywide drought resulted in a contraction in agricultural production. Maize, the key crop in terms of food security, recorded a 30.2 percent year-on-year drop in production. As a result, an estimated 2.8 million people (17 percent of the population) were unable to meet their 2015/16 food requirements.

The Tanzanian economy has grown at an average annual rate of around 6-7 percent for more than a decade. The rate of inflation has declined since January 2016, although it trended upwards in thepreceding few months due to increases in domestic food prices and the lagged impacts of the sharp depreciation of the Tanzanian Shilling during the first half of 2015. However, the Shilling stabilized in the second half of 2015, with the real exchange rate now close to the equilibrium level. The current account deficit has also improved, standing at around 8.7 percent of GDP in 2014/15. The level of aid inflows declined during 2014/15, although this was offset by increases in FDI and external non-concessional borrowing, maintaining the overall balance of payments in a stable position. Tanzania's infrastructure and social services deficits are already massive and projected to increase into the future. Traditional financing instruments are clearly insufficient to bridge the profound gap between existing public resources and financing requirements. By leveraging synergy between the public and private sectors, PPPs can mobilize additional sources of finance to fund the development of vitally needed infrastructure; to deliver on budget and on time to a greater extent than in the case of publicly financed projects; and to deliver higher quality services than in the case of publicly managed projects. Tanzania’s own policy documents identify PPP as a key instrument to attract new investment and to deliver infrastructure more efficiently.

Growth in the six South East European countries (SEE6) rebounded to 2.1 percent in 2015, as investment revived. The SEE6 region is not only growing but also rebalancing to more durable sources of growth. While higher growth in 2015 brought new jobs in the private sector, and helped poverty reduction to resume, unemployment is still entrenched. In 2015, fiscal deficits continued to narrow in all SEE6 countries except Montenegro. With inflation at historic lows, accommodative monetary policy supported growth, and credit to the economy slowly began to grow. The near-term baseline outlook for the region is positive. Fiscal and current account deficits must decline further to support growth. Sustaining the nascent rebalancing requires unlocking the growth potential of the SEE6 economics by reversing productivity dynamics that have been deteriorating since 2008. The agenda for reducing the structural rigidities that impede growth is broad based and centered on five pillars: eliminate disincentives and barriers to formal; employment; improve the business climate and governance; reduce the size of government while improving quality of service delivery; deepen trade and financial integration; and ensure that natural resource use is sustainable.

To carry out their various missions (collecting revenue, facilitating trade, and ensuring security), many customs administrations have established a risk management unit. In developing countries, however, because of the lack of dedicated human and material resources, intelligence and risk analysis remain insufficiently developed. In view of the lack of resources, this paper proposes a simple methodology aiming at detecting risky import operations. The mirror analysis first helps to identify and target products or sectors with the greatest risk. Based on the examination of customs declarations patterns (data mining), it is possible to identify and target higher risk economic operators (importers and customs brokers). When implemented in Madagascar, this method has helped to reveal probable fraud cases in the present context of customs reform. Estimates suggest that, in 2014, customs fraud reduced non-oil customs revenues (duties and import value-added tax) by at least 30 percent.

The three countries covered in this first report, Mali, Chad and Niger, share a number of common characteristics and face a similar set of challenges, which provides the foundation for this joint-review approach. All three are low-income landlocked economies. Each relies heavily on the agricultural sector as its primary source of income and livelihoods, and each has a large livestock subsector that is based in part on traditional nomadic pastoralism. All countries have important natural resource industries, gold for Mali, uranium and oil for Niger, and oil for Chad, which represent the bulk of export earnings and public revenue. This dependence on the primary sector renders these economies highly vulnerable to weather-related shocks and volatile commodity prices. Each is struggling to overcome a legacy of instability and violence, which is complicated both by the fragility of domestic socio-political conditions and the severity of regional security challenges. Finally, all three countries are members of a monetary union that uses a regional currency pegged to the euro and exercises significant influence over the macroeconomic policies of its member states. At the center of the trade-off between stabilization and development lies public investment management, at macroeconomic and financial management levels. Faced with repeated negative shocks, countries tend to cut ongoing and planned public investment projects which are often designed to reduce drivers of fragility and strengthen the resilience of economies, thus perpetuating risks of falling into fragility traps. Hence, Section three discusses the impact of public investment volatility on its quality in Chad, Mali and Niger, and explores possible options in terms of macroeconomic and public financial management to smooth public investment budget execution.

The recent reversal of capital flows to emerging markets has pointed up the continuing relevance of the sudden stop problem. This paper analyzes the sudden stops in capital flows to emerging markets since 1991. It shows that the frequency and duration of sudden stops have remained largely unchanged, but that the relative importance of different factors in their incidence has changed. In particular, global factors appear to have become more important relative to country-specific characteristics and policies. Sudden stops now tend to affect different parts of the world simultaneously rather than bunching regionally. Stronger macroeconomic and financial frameworks have allowed policy makers to respond more flexibly, but these more flexible responses have not guaranteed insulation or mitigated the impact of the phenomenon. These findings suggest that the challenge of understanding and coping with capital-flow volatility is far from fully met.

The withdrawal of international security forces since 2014 and continuing political uncertainties have resulted in a significant deceleration to economic growth, with fiscal pressures increasing as security threats mount. However, to a significant extent, Afghanistan has successfully managed the immediate challenges resulting from the transition. It has maintained macroeconomic stability and established the conditions for a slow recovery of the economy. Risks to the economy remain significant, and it is vital that the Government identify new sources of growth to replace the declining donor inflows over the longer-term. The medium-term outlook points towards a slow recovery over the next three years. The rate of growth is projected to reach 1.9 percent in 2016, assuming adjustments in firms and households’ behavior in the context of the deteriorating security environment. Growth is projected to gradually increase from 1.9 percent in 2016 to 3.6 percent in 2018, if the political situation stabilizes and planned reforms are successfully implemented. On the other hand, any deterioration in the security environment could weaken growth prospects, with this risk being the most significant faced by the country.

South Asia emerged as the fastest growing region in the world in 2015, posting GDP growth of 7 percent. Weak oil and commodity prices, slowing capital flows and shrinking global trade contributed towards a deceleration of growth in most of the world's economies. South Asia - as a net importer of oil - was an anomaly, growing significantly on the back of higher private consumption and public investment. Higher remittances and reserve buffers throughout the region offset the fall in exports caused by the drop in global demand. The region is set to maintain real GDP growth above 7 percent over the next few years. However, the tailwinds are now fading - capital flows have declined and remittances are starting to feel the reality of low oil prices. Pakistan, while not growing as quickly as its neighbors, has continued its steady growth recovery in H1FY16. Strong growth in consumption, rising foreign exchange reserves, fast-growing workers' remittances and a lower import bill compensated for a significant fall in exports. Low oil prices generated a significant boost, driving a 9.1 percent fall in the import bill and reducing inflation significantly, in turn creating scope to reduce the policy rate. Private sector consumption, propelled by higher remittances and a loosened monetary policy, is expected to account for over half of FY16 GDP growth.

This disaster risk financing country note for Serbia provides an overview of the way its government currently finances the costs imposed by natural disasters. Meanwhile, poverty deepened after the financial crisis and during the recessions of 2012 and 2014, mainly because of losses in employment and labor income. In an effort to overcome its fiscal challenges, the government of Serbia adopted an ambitious fiscal consolidation and structural reform program to halt the rise in public debt and send it on a downward trajectory by 2017. This program is supported by a three-year stand-by arrangement from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Because of the growing frequency and severity of disasters, the government has faced the rising costs of responding to disasters as well as the challenges of financing emergency response and reconstruction costs. Having sufficient access to financial instruments and resources in order to respond to disasters is crucial for building the financial resilience of the country and minimizing the negative impact of natural disasters on Serbia’s economic growth. In this report, chapter one gives introduction. Chapter two provides the background and country context, including the recent economic impacts of disasters. Chapter three reviews the current institutional and legal framework for disaster risk management and financing. Chapter four is a review of the public financial management of disasters in Serbia, including ex ante and ex post disaster risk financing and insurance (DRFI) instruments currently in use for budget mobilization, and it looks at the 2014 floods in more detail. The chapter concludes with a summary of financial resources available and a look at the potential resource gaps.

In 2010, Greece, under the pressure of an increasing public debt, was forced to resort to the Troika, which is the designation of the triumvirate which comprises the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Troika agreed to provide Greece with financial help, on special terms recorded in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Greek Government and the Troika. One of the most important reforms that are recorded in the MoU is the Pension Reform since the Greek Social Security System had long showed signs of unsustainability and insolvency. The recession also caused further impoverishment of old-age people followed by the rest of the population and this became one of the main reasons that the reforms could not be fully implemented for fear of further impoverishment of pensioners and social exclusion in general, as well as political cost which is always a key factor. This paper aims to further analyze and present the impact of the reforms on the Greek Pension System and the people who rely on it, through an actuarial, statistical analysis and point out the changes in the main factors mentioned above and how they correlate.

This technical note discusses the current status of banking supervision and regulation in Montenegro in the context of select Basel Core Principles (BCP). This note has been prepared as part of a Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) update conducted jointly by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) in September 2015. As agreed with the authorities, the FSAP tea

Studies on the link between financial development and poverty have been inconclusive. Some claim that deeper financial sectors should improve the allocation of capital by allowing entrepreneurs greater access to finance, which should particularly favor the poor. Others argue that improvements in the financial system primarily benefit the rich and politically connected. The literature has also been ambiguous about the channels through which finance may be associated with lower poverty (deposits versus credit). Looking at a sample of 37 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa from 1992 through 2006, the paper suggests that financial deepening is associated with lower poverty through different channels depending on the strength of property rights. In the absence of well-defined and enforced property rights, wider access to saving and risk-sharing instruments is accompanied by a reduction in poverty. Only once property rights grow stronger is credit associated with lower poverty.

Fiscal indicators for resource-rich and resource-poor low- and middle-income countries are compared using annual data from 1996 to 2012. Resource richness is defined by export composition: fuel greater than a 25 percent share and/or ores and metals greater than a 10 percent share. Fuel exporters have a significantly better general government fiscal balance than the rest of the sample, and higher revenues and expenditures, which are approximately evenly split between extra consumption expenditure and extra capital expenditure. Only about a quarter of their extra revenue goes into extra consumption expenditure, and this proportion has been lower since 2005. Fuel exporters' expenditure reacts with a lag to oil price fluctuations. There are no significant differences between ores and metals exporters and resource-poor countries, or between new and old resource exporters, in aggregate expenditures and revenues. Ores and metals exporters spend more on investment and less on government consumption. Some individual country cases are briefly discussed.

Effective January 1, 2018, IFRS 9 Financial Instruments will replace IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement (IAS 39). Unlike most publications on IFRS 9, this paper focuses primarily on the application of the new standard on central banks’ foreign reserve assets, which increasingly constitute a substantial part of central banks’ balance sheet. Based on IFRS 9 implementation assessment projects with several central banks, the World Bank RAMP accounting team identified six factors that can help central banks determine appropriate business model for foreign reserve assets. Empirically, the result of applying the six factors has indicated that central banks’ reserve portfolios often display elements of more than one business model; hence management judgment coupled with a well-articulated accounting policy paper will be critical when implementing IFRS 9. Under most central banks reserves management frameworks, performing the solely payments of principal and interest (SPPI) test should be a relatively straightforward exercise, and the practical expedient option under the new impairment provisions should also apply.

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2016 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business. This regional profile presents the Doing Business indicators for economies in Southern African Development Community (SADC). It also shows the regional average, the best performance globally for each indicator and data for the following comparator regions: East Asia and the Pacific (EAP), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), European Union (EU), Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2014).

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2016 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business.This regional profile presents the Doing Business indicators for economies in The g7 . It also shows the regional average, the best performance globally for each indicator and data for the following comparator regions. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2014).

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2016 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business. This regional profile presents the Doing Business indicators for economies in European Union (EU). It also shows the regional average, the best performance globally for each indicator and data for the following comparator regions: East Asia and the Pacific (EAP), Europe and Central Asia (ECA), Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Latin America and OECD High Income.. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2014).

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2016 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business. This regional profile presents the Doing Business indicators for economies in Arab World. It also shows the regional average, the best performance globally for each indicator and data for the following comparator regions: Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East Asia and the Pacific (EAP), Europe and Central Asia (ECA), Latin America and OECD High Income.. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2014).

This paper analyzes the relationship between fiscal multipliers and fiscal positions of governments using an Interactive Panel Vector Auto Regression model and a large data-set of advanced and developing economies. The methodology permits tracing the endogenous relationship between fiscal multipliers and fiscal positions while maintaining enough degrees of freedom to draw sharp inferences. The paper reports three major results. First, the fiscal multipliers depend on fiscal positions: the multipliers tend to be larger when fiscal positions are strong (i.e. when government debt and deficits are low) than weak. For instance, the long-run multiplier can be as large as unity when the fiscal position is strong, while it can be negative when the fiscal position is weak. Second, these effects are separate and distinct from the impact of the business cycle on the fiscal multiplier. Third, the state-dependent effects of the fiscal position on multipliers is attributable to two factors: an interest rate channel through which higher borrowing costs, due to investors' increased perception of credit risks when stimulus is implemented from a weak initial fiscal position, crowd out private investment; and a Ricardian channel through which households reduce consumption in anticipation of future fiscal adjustments.

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2016 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business. This regional profile presents the Doing Business indicators for economies in OECD High Income. It also shows the regional average, the best performance globally for each indicator and data for the following comparator regions: European Union (EU), East Asia and the Pacific (EAP), Europe and Central Asia (ECA), South Asia (SA) and Latin America.. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2014).

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2016 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business. This regional profile presents the Doing Business indicators for economies in Landlocked Economies. It also shows the regional average, the best performance globally for each indicator and data for the following comparator regions. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2014).

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2016 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business. This regional profile presents the Doing Business indicators for economies in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It also shows the regional average, the best performance globally for each indicator and data for the following comparator regions. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2014).

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2016 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business. This regional profile presents the Doing Business indicators for economies in Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). It also shows the regional average, the best performance globally for each indicator and data for the following comparator regions: Europe and Central Asia (ECA), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) and OECD High Income.. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2014).

Ukraines vast needs in infrastructure coupled with a constrained fiscal space require concerted efforts in strengthening public investment management. Investments in infrastructure are important for fostering economic growth. Translating public investments into assets crucially depends on how efficiently all types of public investments are management. The structure to handle PPPs is currently inadequate to access the global PPP market. Since a PPP system needs to be built on the foundations of a workable PIM system, the prospects for Ukraine attracting international standard investments from the global PPP market may appear to be out of reach for the time being. Recent reforming legislation aimed at fixing some of the issues highlighted in the 2012 PIM Assessment is encouraging but much will depend on the effectiveness of the implementation and the capacity of the institutional actors to understand and absorb them. This Assessment must by its very nature capture the situation at the time of the Assessment rather than an expectation of future potential.

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2016 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business.This regional profile presents the Doing Business indicators for economies in East Asia and the Pacific (EAP). It also shows the regional average, the best performance globally for each indicator and data for the following comparator regions: Europe and Central Asia (ECA), European Union (EU), Latin America, South Asia (SA) and OECD High Income.. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2014).

The images of flattened buildings and tent cities that dominated the news following the Haitian earthquake of January 12, 2010 triggered an emergency response from the global aid and development community. Foreign governments, multilateral organizations including the World Bank, and NGOs dramatically increased the flow of funding to the devastated country. The money helped pay for emergency relief but also for higher public investment spending that sought to repair damage and press ahead with development projects that had begun before the disaster. Six years later, the flow of aid is declining, and Haiti faces pivotal challenges: how to adapt to the reductions, raise more resources internally, spend more efficiently, and safeguard the fragile social gains it has achieved in a time of extreme hardship. The infrastructure Haiti has acquired in the recent surge of investment is something like a newly built house that lacks furniture and running water, it may look good from the outside but does little for its occupants. For the present, life remains a struggle for most of the country’s 10.4 million people. Thus in addition to growth, the country needs policies that will foster inclusiveness. Analysis and past experience suggest that two factors are key: human capital and political stability. To achieve this goal, Haiti will require a new outlook favoring fair, efficient government and social inclusiveness.

The World Bank has used an income classification to group countries for analytical purposes for many years. Since the present income classification was first introduced 25 years ago there has been significant change in the global economic landscape. As real incomes have risen, the number of countries in the low income group has fallen to 31, while the number of high income countries has risen to 80. As countries have transitioned to middle income status, more people are living below the World Banks international extreme poverty line in middle income countries than in low income countries. These changes in the world economy, along with a rapid increase in the user base of World Bank data, suggest that a review of the income classification is needed. A key consideration is the views of users, and this paper finds opinions to be mixed: some critics argue the thresholds are dated and set too low; others find merit in continuing to have a fixed benchmark to assess progress over time. On balance, there is still value in the current approach, based on gross national income per capita, to classifying countries into different groups. However, the paper proposes adjustments to the methodology that is used to keep the value of the thresholds for each income group constant over time. Several proposals for changing the current thresholds are also presented, which it is hoped will inform further discussion and any decision to adopt a new approach.