This paper investigates whether the expansion of fast internet networks complements or substitutes for the development of roads to improve market access and create more and higher-skilled jobs in Africa. The paper combines the geographic locations of households and firms with the locations of...

Cote d'Ivoire, the largest economy in the West African Economic and Monetary Union, was hit by COVID-19, which claimed many lives. This paper estimates COVID-19 mortality costs over time using the value of a statistical life. Using a more conservative estimate of the value of a statistical life...

This paper examines spillovers in the use of digital technologies from formal to informal businesses by exploring differences in geographic proximity. Using a unique set of geocoded data from the 2019 World Bank Enterprise Surveys in Zambia, the findings indicate that closer geographic proximity...

Irregular migration from West Africa to Europe across the Sahara and Mediterranean is extremely risky for migrants and a key policy concern. A cluster-randomized experiment with 3,641 young men from 391 settlements in The Gambia is used to test three approaches to reducing risky migration:...

This paper provides one of the first comprehensive and most updated studies on the effects of firms’ organizational resources, country institutions, and national culture on the survival and growth of private firms around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Analyzing World Bank Enterprise...

The paper uses a new country-level, panel data set to study the effect of public sector wages on corruption. The results show that wage inequality in the public sector is an important determinant of the effectiveness of anti-corruption policies. Increasing the wages of public officials could...

Drawing on various macro- and micro-data sources, the authors present robust evidence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between female labor force participation and inequality. Overall, female labor force participation is found to have a strong and significant dis-equalizing impact in at...

Regional trade agreements increasingly include provisions that regulate state-owned enterprises. This paper combines new information on the content of “deep” regional trade agreements and data on Chinese firm-level exports during 2000-11 to analyze the spillover effect of rules on...

How can the world reach herd immunity against COVID-19 before the second anniversary of the pandemic, or March 2022? A study of vaccine demand and supply answers this question. A target of vaccinating 60 percent of the population in each country by March 2022 is likely sufficient to achieve...

Recent debates surrounding the lagging COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in low-income countries center around vaccine supply and financing. Yet, relatively little is known about attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines in these countries and in Africa in particular. This paper provides cross-country...