This paper offers an empirical
evaluation of the output contribution of infrastructure.
Drawing from a large data set on infrastructure stocks
covering 88 countries and spanning the years 1960-2000, and
using a panel time-series approach, the paper estimates a
long-run aggregate production function relating GDP to human
capital, physical capital, and a synthetic measure of
infrastructure given by the first principal component of

The authors are grateful to a number of people who helped at various states in the drafting of this paper.

The events of the last few weeks are a
watershed for Tunisia, Egypt, and other Middle East and
North Africa (MENA) countries. The ongoing political events
will resonate regionally and globally and, if followed by
sound transitions to better governance structures, these
events provide a unique opportunity to change MENA's
political and social landscape. The root cause of the
political turmoil in MENA is fatigue with longstanding

This report provides technical
assistance and capacity building on the poverty measurement
methodology of the Paraguayan government. The report makes
several policy recommendations concerning urban labor market
trends and opportunities for employment, rural factor
markets and poverty, and ex-ante evaluation of the expansion
of cash transfer programs in Paraguay. The report concludes
that in order to increase productivity it is important to

The report has a high quality and
discusses the main issues of regulation. The overall aim is
that it reflects best practice regulation. Furthermore, AERA
is an independent regulator accountable to democratic
bodies. Also in that respect the regulatory institutions in
India are well designed and superior to the majority of
European countries which have dependent regulators open for
regulatory capture.

This paper estimates the relationship
between initial village inequality and subsequent household
income growth for a large sample of households in rural
China. Using a rich longitudinal survey spanning the years
1987-2002, and controlling for an array of household and
village characteristics, the paper finds that households
located in higher inequality villages experienced
significantly lower income growth through the 1990s.

Robert B. Zoellick, World Bank Group President, addresses the
biggest threat to the poor around the world: high and
volatile food prices. The Bank released an updated Food Price Watch
that underscores the need for the G20 to put food
first. The key driver behind the upward spiral in the food
price index has been sharp rises in the prices of wheat,
maize, sugar, and oils. He discusses the global food
price hikes which have pushed about 44 million people into

Cities in the modern world are beginning to share some features with the city-states of millennia past. Now, as then, cities are important, even critical, to economic development. Unlike the walled cities that harbored flourishing trade in medieval Europe, today, cities by the thousands all around the world are looking outward in search not of silk and spices, but rather sources of finance, global talent, and most of all, good ideas. But the search for knowledge isn't always easy.

This brief includes the following
headings: international experience; key issues; lessons
learned; recommendations; and case studies of World Bank
financed projects.

The purpose of the Public Expenditure
and Financial Accountability (PEFA) assessment is to provide
the Government of Lao PDR (GOL) with a concise,
standardized, objective, indicator-led assessment of the
country's public financial management (PFM) systems to
provide a benchmark against which to measure the further
strengthening of Lao PFM. Partial assessments have been made
in the past. However, this is the first comprehensive

Solid waste management (SWM) is a major
environment and health hazard in the urban areas of
Pakistan. The World Bank is of the opinion that as cities
economies are fast growing, business activity and
consumption patterns are driving up solid waste quantities.
In Pakistan the collection of waste is sporadic and the
disposal is poor. Despite the fact that solid waste services
represent the single largest expenditure item, less than 50

This paper investigates the main factors
explaining long container dwell times in African Ports.
Using original and extensive data on container imports in
the Port of Douala, it seeks to provide a basic
understanding of why containers stay on average more than
two weeks in gateway ports in Africa while long dwell times
are widely recognized as a critical hindrance to economic
development. It also demonstrates the interrelationships