Doing Business 2011: making a difference
for entrepreneurs is the eighth in a series of annual
reports investigating regulations that enhance business
activity and those that constrain it. Doing Business
presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and

Nigeria's vision of 2020 is a bold
desire to be among the top twenty economies by the year
2020. The economy has posted impressive growth figures since
2003 driven by higher oil prices and a series of home-grown,
economic reforms. The country is now firmly on the road to

The newly delineated Peshawar City
District (PCD) has undergone significant transformations in
the past ten years. Originally encompassing the adjoining
districts of Charsadda and Nowshera, the district gradually
shrunk in size after both sub-divisions acquired a district

The World Bank group, among the
world's largest development institutions, is a major
source of financial and technical assistance to developing
countries around the world. In fiscal 2009, the World Bank
group sponsored 767 projects with a total commitment of

This year's annual review of
development effectiveness (ARDE) is being written against
the backdrop of a global financial crisis, declining growth,
and massive fiscal stimulus efforts to revitalize markets.
Demand for greater development support from the World Bank

The purpose of this guidance note is to
bridge precisely identify how to implement World Bank
resettlement policies in the context of infrastructure
projects affecting South Asian largest cities, with a focus
on the impacts on poor areas and slums. The guidance note is

This assessment of poverty and
inequality comes at an important juncture for Kenya. The
December 2007 elections and subsequent pronouncements of the
newly formed Grand Coalition have underlined the salience of
these issues to ordinary Kenyans, and for policy makers. The

Although there has been considerable
recent interest in micro-credit programs, rigorous evidence
on the impacts of forming self-help groups to mobilize
savings and foster social empowerment at the local level is
virtually non-existent, despite a large number of programs

This paper evaluates the impact of the
Thailand Village and Urban Revolving Fund on household
expenditure, income, and assets. The revolving fund was
launched in 2001 when the Government of Thailand promised to
provide a million baht (about $22,500) to every village and

Size, age, sector, and productivity are
commonly cited as factors determining a firm s survival.
However, there are several dimensions of the investment
climate in which the firm operates that affect whether it
continues in business or exits. This paper uses new panel

Well-functioning groups enforce social
norms that restrain opportunism, but the social structure of
a society may encourage or inhibit norm enforcement. This
paper studies how the exogenous assignment to different
positions in an extreme social hierarchy - the caste system

Poor governance is a major impediment to
achieving development outcomes of the forest sector. It
results in losses of income, employment, government
revenues, and local and global environmental services.
However, at present, no comprehensive guide to reforming