World Bank Group

Decoding climate anomalies—From scientifically sound to societally relevant

As climate impacts worsen, decision-makers, researchers, and public sector institutions increasingly need reliable, relevant, and appropriate information about emerging weather and climate anomalies. However, with the ever-expanding choice of datasets based on ground observations...

Voluntary sustainability standards and economic and ecological outcomes: panel evidence from Rwanda’s coffee sector

Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) promise consumers that certified products are produced under sustainable conditions. While the literature assessing the effects of VSS has expanded considerably, most studies rely on cross-sectional data, thereby providing only a snapshot...

Revealing tax evasion: Experimental evidence from a representative survey of Indonesian firms

Measuring tax evasion by firms is notoriously difficult: direct questions yield biased responses while administrative data captures only detected violations. This paper examines the prevalence of reported tax non-compliance in Indonesia through a randomized, double-list experimen...

Why do people migrate irregularly? Evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment in West Africa

Irregular migration to Europe by sea, though risky, remains one of the most popular migration options for many Sub-Saharan Africans. This study examines the drivers of irregular migration decisions using an incentivized lab-in-the-field experiment in rural Gambia, the African cou...

The Impact of the EU Common Agricultural Policy on Regional Agricultural Productivity

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the relationship between EU agricultural subsidies and labor productivity growth in agriculture, using data from 1007 NUTS‐3 regions over the period 2007–2020. The fine spatial resolution improves comparability across regions and allows a more det...

COVID-19 lockdown and coverage of maternal health and nutrition care in rural West Bengal, India: a single interrupted time-series analysis

Abstract While COVID-19 lockdowns globally disrupted healthcare, the extent of changes in India’s maternal health and nutrition services coverage in rural settings requires further empirical investigation. Utilizing data from 57,371 pregnancies recorded between January 2012 and D...

Loss of salt iodization harmed child survival and academic achievement in Ethiopia

Abstract The introduction of salt iodization is associated with improved health and socioeconomic outcomes, but is not yet universally adopted and not always sustained. Using a quasi-experimental event study with difference-in-differences over space and time, we quantify the impa...