Financial inclusion is receiving increasing attention for its potential to contribute to economic and financial development while fostering more inclusive growth and greater income equality. Although substantial progress has been made, there is still much to achieve. East Asia, the Pacific, and...

This paper attempts to identify the firm and country-related factors that determine a firm's probability of participating in global value chains (GVCs) and level of GVC participation by using data from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys, covering 111 countries and 38,966 firms for the...

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is far-reaching. In this paper, we selectively review the rapidly growing literature with a focus on (1) the impact of COVID-19 on the labor market, both in terms of overall employment and in terms of work-from-home arrangements; (2) how COVID-19 may impact...

Sustainable Development Goal 15 deals with "Life on Land." Its nine targets and three means of implementation cover a vast array of environmentally sensitive issues related to land-based renewable natural resources. This paper explores the channels through which trade can address them....

Digital trade facilitation refers to the application of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) to simplify and automate international trade procedures. It is rapidly becoming essential to maintaining trade competitiveness and enabling effective participation in cross-border...

The paper investigates the situation of middle-income economies around the world. Since 1965, only 18 economies with a population of more than 3 million and not dependent on oil exports have made the transition to being high income. Many more have not been able to move beyond the middle-income...

This paper provides novel empirical evidence on the role of trade and structural transformation as potential drivers of the labor income share. Using cross-country data, both at the national and sectoral level, we find that trade openness is negatively correlated with the labor income share. The...

The global economic slowdown has again highlighted the vulnerability of export-led development models and economies to downturns in export markets. Economic deepening or "rebalancing" with an emphasis on service-sector development should be - and is becoming - one long-term response to the...

This paper examines how the services sector could provide decent and gainful employment in developing Asia. Using living wages as a reference point, this paper reports that a significant portion of the workforce in developing Asian economies, the majority of which are employed in the...

This paper examines the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on domestic innovation based on a data set covering the pharmaceutical industries across 29 provinces in the People's Republic of China (PRC) over the period 1998-2007. We show that there is a negative horizontal spillover effect...