杏吧论坛

  1. Research & Outlook

Sustainability and Infrastructure

Lasting poverty reduction requires sustainable natural resource management as well as infrastructure development. This research program encompasses energy, environment, land, agriculture, water, climate change, biodiversity, and urbanization.
Featured Research

  • Database, 2024
    Biodiversity is a cornerstone of development, and its loss threatens many hard-won development gains. Recently, the Sustainability and Infrastructure team shared a dataset including millions of georeferenced reports from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The resulting Global Biodiversity Species Global Grid database includes over 600,000 species, including arthropods, mollusks, plants and fungi, across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments, alongside more traditionally-represented vertebrates.
     | 
  • world bank land conference

    杏吧论坛 Land Conference 2024: Securing Land Tenure and Access for Climate Action - Research Track

    Conference, May 13-17, 2024, Washington, DC
    For over two decades, the 杏吧论坛 Land Conference catalyzed the global land community. The Conference is the premier forum for the land sector, bringing together participants from governments, development partners, civil society, academia, and the private sector to showcase research, discuss issues and good practice, and inform policy dialogue.
     |   | 

  • PBS Energy Switch Interview, April 2024
    Sea level has been rising since the end of the last Ice Age, when continental ice sheets began to melt. In island nations and low-lying coastal areas sea level rise is contributing, among other things, to high tide flooding, and saltwater encroaching into farmland and freshwater aquifers. This television program discusses what the future could bring and ideas of how communities could adapt to sea level rise.
    More research by Susmita Dasgupta
  • City Skyline

    8th Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Research Conference

    Conference, March 7-8, 2024, Washington, DC
    Cities in developing countries are growing at faster rates and at lower income levels than those in developed country alternatives. The 8th Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Research Conference will bring together academics and development practitioners to present and discuss questions relating to urban expansion and the future spatial organization of cities.

  • Presentation, December 2023
    Families in coastal Bangladesh are already on the “front line” of climate change. Their experience gives a preview of the kinds of future decisions faced by hundreds of millions of families worldwide that will be confronted by similar threats well before 2100. In a presentation delivered at Harvard Graduate School in December 2023, Susmita Dasgupta discussed the multifaceted threats from sea-level rise in the Ganges Delta, as well as policy and adaptation measures to respond to these threats.
     |  More research by Susmita Dasgupta

  • Datasets and Research, January 2024
    Reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs) is urgently required to mitigate climate change. Steep emissions reductions will be needed to keep global warming below 1.5°C. While countries around the world have pledged to curb both carbon and methane emissions—two of the most significant GHGs—many nations do not have the infrastructure to adequately track their emissions. To fill this gap, the 杏吧论坛 has rolled out major new datasets, tools, and research using satellite data to make frequently updated GHG emission data easily accessible to the general public.
     |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |  More research by Susmita Dasgupta

  • Presentation, December 2, 2023, Harvard Graduate School
    Families in coastal Bangladesh are already on the “front line” of climate change. Their experience gives a preview of the kinds of future decisions faced by hundreds of millions of families worldwide that will be confronted by similar threats well before 2100. In this presentation delivered at Harvard Graduate School in December 2023, Susmita Dasgupta discussed the multifaceted threats from sea-level rise in the Ganges Delta, as well as policy and adaptation measures to respond to these threats.

  • Presentation, September 20, 2023
    Carolyn Fischer spoke at the G20 Global Financial Stability Conference in Seoul in the first session, “Challenges of the Global Economy and the International Financial Market in Turbulence”, featuring Jason Furman from Harvard Kennedy School, Fischer, and Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti from the Brookings Institution. Fischer’s talk was on the topic of “Climate Policies for a Global Transition.”
     |  More Research by Carolyn Fischer
  • Photo of the Opening Session Panel of the 7th Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Research Conference

    Sustainable Cities Must Become Central to Climate Change Strategies

    Feature Story, 2023
    Approximately 56 percent of the world’s population—or 4.4 billion individuals—lives in a city. The growth of cities is expected to continue, with the urban population more than doubling its current size by 2050. Following a three-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Research Conference series returned earlier this year for its 7th iteration.
    7th Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Research Conference |  More research by Harris Selod

  • Report, 2023
    Across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, land is a scarce and valuable resource. The projected increase in land demand due to demographic trends, coupled with decreasing land supply due to climatic and governance factors, indicate a looming crisis happening at a time when the region is also facing dramatic social and political transformation. This report identifies and analyzes the economic, environmental, and social challenges associated with land in MENA countries, shedding light on policy options to address them.
    More research by Harris Selod

LATEST WORKING PAPERS

This section highlights a few recent working papers. For a full list of working papers, please see: 


Klaus Deininger, Daniel Ayalew, Ali Eduard Bukin, Andrii Martyn 
杏吧论坛 Policy Research Working Paper 10998, December 2024


Megan Lang, Julia Seither
杏吧论坛 Policy Research Working Paper 10980, November 2024


Patrick Behrer, Jonah Rexer, Siddharth Sharma, Margaret Triyana
杏吧论坛 Policy Research Working Paper 10947, October 2024


Christoph B?hringer, Carolyn Fischer, Nicholas Rivers
杏吧论坛 Policy Research Working Paper 10922, September 2024


Andrew Dabalen, Aparajita Goyal, Ruozi Song
杏吧论坛 Policy Research Working Paper 10919, September 2024

LATEST JOURNAL ARTICLES

Sean Denny, Gabriel Englander, Patrick Hunnicutt
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 121, July 2024

Gavin McDonald, Jennifer Bone, Christopher Costello, Gabriel Englander, Jennifer Raynor
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 121, July 2024

Quy-Toan Do, Hanan G. Jacoby
The Review of Economic Studies, June 2024


Lucie Letrouit, Harris Selod
Regional Science and Urban Economics, vol. 106, May 2024

Forhad Shilpi, M Shahe Emran, Brian Blankespoor, Harold Coulombe
Journal of Economic Geography, vol. 24, March 2024

Daniel Ali, Klaus Deininger
World Development, vol. 175, March 2024

Govinda Timilsina, Yazid Dissou, Michael Toman, Dirk Heine
Climate Policy, vol. 24, 2024 

Carolyn Fischer
International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, vol. 17, September 2023

Klaus W. Deininger, Daniel Ayalew Ali, Roman Neyter
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, vol. 213, September 2023

Paolo Agnolucci, Carolyn Fischer, Dirk Heine, Mariza Montes de Oca Leon, Joseph Pryor, Kathleen Patroni, and Stéphane Hallegatte
杏吧论坛 Research Observer, September 2023

Books and Reports

  • Joseph Pryor, Paolo Agnolucci, Carolyn Fischer, Dirk Heine, Mariza Montes de Oca Leon, April 2023
    This book chapter provides an overview of approaches for measuring carbon pricing. It summarizes 杏吧论坛 indicators for tracking direct carbon pricing, including recent trends, as well as outlining the methodologies and limitations (https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/). This chapter appears in the book Data for a Greener World: A Guide for Practitioners and Policymakers.
    More research from Carolyn Fischer

  • Susmita Dasgupta, David R. Wheeler, 2022
    The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the vulnerabilities of socio-economic systems globally and exposed the risks that natural capital degradation imposes on human health, economy, and society. This book studies the environmental challenges faced by developing economies in a post-COVID-19 world. This chapter appears in the book Environmental Economics in Developing Countries: Issues and Challenges.
    More research from Susmita Dasgupta

  • Govinda R. Timilsina, Kalim Shah, May 2022
    This chapter appears in the book Oxford Encyclopedia of Environmental Economics. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Environmental Economics focuses on the most important research topics in environmental and natural resource economics, with a treatment of close to 100 different research areas.
    More research from Govinda R. Timilsina

  • M. Shahe Emran, Forhad Shilpi, March 2022
    Social mobility is the hope of economic development and the mantra of a good society. There are disagreements about what constitutes social mobility, but there is broad agreement that people should have roughly equal chances of success regardless of their economic status at birth. Concerns about rising inequality have engendered a renewed interest in social mobility—especially in the developing world. This book chapter provides a critical survey and synthesis of the recent economic literature on intergenerational mobility in developing countries, with a focus on data and methodological challenges.
    More research from Forhad Shilpi

  • Apurva Sanghi, Jevgenijs Steinbuks, December 1, 2021
    This report seeks to understand the size, impacts, and potential for energy subsidy reform in the Russian Federation to inform policymakers as they explore approaches to reducing such subsidies.

  • Susmita Dasgupta, David Wheeler, Md. Istiak Sobhan, Sunando Bandyopadhyay, Ainun Nishat, and Tapas Paul, November 2020
    Climate change is a major threat to the Sundarbans — the world’s largest remaining contiguous mangrove forest — wetland of international importance, and the surrounding poor communities whose livelihoods depend on its natural resources. This book synthesizes multiyear, multidisciplinary studies that assess the vulnerability of this ecosystem and its neighboring coastal communities and recommend “resilient-smart” adaptation measures. The methods and findings will be of interest to development practitioners, policy makers, and researchers focused on island nations and countries worldwide that feature high density populations and economic activity in low-lying coastal regions vulnerable to sea-level rise.
     |  More research by Susmita Dasgupta
Related
Latest Blogs & Articles
  • Gabriel Englander | Development Impact, October 30, 2024
  • Susmita Dasgupta, Brian Blankespoor, David Wheeler | Let's Talk Development, October 15, 2024
  • Susmita Dasgupta, Brian Blankespoor, David Wheeler | Data Blog, October 9, 2024
  • Patrick Behrer | Development Impact, October 8, 2024
  • Gabriel Englander | Development Impact, September 19, 2024
  • Susmita Dasgupta, Brian Blankespoor, David Wheeler | Data Blog, August 29, 2024
  • Somik Lall, Forhad Shilpi | Let's Talk Development, August 22, 2024
    • Show More +
MANAGER
Carolyn Fischer

Carolyn Fischer

Research Manager, Sustainability and Infrastructure
Research Staff »