Finance sector development, Poverty
Video Blog
Economics, Education, Finance sector development, Governance and public sector management
Economics, Finance sector development, Governance and public sector management
Economics, Finance sector development
Economics, Education, Finance sector development, Poverty
Video Blog
Economics, Education, Finance sector development
Economics, Finance sector development, Poverty, Social development and protection
Economics, Education, Finance sector development, Governance and public sector management, Information and Communications Technology
Remittances as a trigger for postal financial inclusion
More than 1 billion adult Asians rely on the region’s 350,000 post offices. Over 2 million employees in more than 350,000 post offices and agents across Asia serve 1 billion of the 3.2 billion adults in the region (more than 57% of the world’s adult population) by providing basic financial services, including the receipt of remittances. The majority of the users live in rural communities or peri-urban areas, often at a considerable distance from bank branches, and consider post offices as an immediate access point to financial services.
VIDEO BLOG: Empowering local communities to finance their clean energy future
The efficiency of solar power cells and lower cost of storage batteries means it has become possible for isolated villages and whole islands to generate their own electricity off-grid. Indeed, in the aftermath of two hurricanes that struck Puerto Rico, Elon Musk tweeted that independent solar power linked to batteries could rebuild that island’s entire electricity system.
Management quality and innovation
It is well recognized that innovation is an important ingredient in generating the competitive advantage and long-run growth of nations, ultimately affecting their economic development. Thus, there is considerable interest in the determinants of innovation, not only in the corporate sector but also among policy makers around the world and in Asia in particular.
Unconventional Monetary Policy in the Asian Financial Crisis
In a new paper, Unconventional Monetary Policy in the Asian Financial Crisis: Seeing the Crisis through Post-2008 Eyes, we reassess some of the policies central banks used during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997–1998 in light of the responses of some advanced-economy central banks to the North Atlantic Financial Crisis of 2008. Public funding of bank recapitalizations in Thailand and the extraordinary purchase of equities in Hong Kong, China have elements of the unconventional monetary policy known as quantitative easing (QE) that has received so much attention in major advanced economies in recent years.
Public equity markets and innovation
One of the key challenges for policy makers today is fostering an environment that promotes innovation and entrepreneurship to create robust economic growth. Public equity markets are typically central to such environments, and in particular the ability of firms to go public through the initial public offering (IPO) process.
What are the policy options for reversing productivity decline?
The world economy at present is in the middle of profound adjustment. Slow economic growth and obvious economic divisions are resulting in the self-fulfilling “low-growth trap”, while productivity is declining all over the world and income inequality is worsening at the country level. These trends have been interacting and blending with each other since the global financial crisis of 2008 and have triggered a vicious cycle that has become an obstacle to world economic recovery.
VIDEO BLOG: Remove trade barriers to improve health systems and lower patients’ costs
Trade in health products has been flourishing as more and more people demand better health. But countries around the world still apply tariffs and nontariff measures that jack up prices and curb the entry of pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and medical equipment.
Financial literacy and savings: Evidence from Cambodia and Viet Nam
Financial literacy has gained an important position in the policy agenda of many countries, and the importance of collecting informative, reliable data on the levels of financial literacy across adult populations has been widely recognized (OECD/INFE 2015a). At their summit in Los Cabos in 2012, G20 leaders endorsed the High-Level Principles on National Strategies for Financial Education developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development International Network on Financial Education (OECD/INFE), thereby acknowledging the importance of coordinated policy approaches to financial education (G20 2012).
International remittances and poverty reduction
The World Bank (2014) estimates that international remittances to developing countries reached $436 billion in 2014. Remittances to the East Asia and the Pacific region and the South Asia region account for the largest and second-largest shares in the world. The authors examine the impact of international remittances on poverty reduction to determine whether such remittances contributed to a reduction in various indicators of poverty.
Mergers and acquisitions and corporate innovation
Technological innovation represents modern corporations’ endeavors to develop and accumulate knowledge, and it has long been recognized as a catalyst for economic growth and productivity increase (Solow 1957; Romer 1986; Aghion and Howitt 1992) and as a key factor in the competitive advantages of nations (Porter 1998).
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