World Development

1973 - 2026

Current editor(s): O. T. Coomes

From Elsevier
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Volume 202, issue C, 2026

Circular resettlement and ongoing risk: earthquakes, landslides, and the challenges of “integrated” reconstruction in Nepal

Sara Shneiderman, Amy Leigh Johnson, Jeevan Baniya, Dipak Basnet, Nyima Dorjee Bhotia, Tek Bahadur Dong, Anuradha Puri, Jonathan Rigg, Mukta Tamang and Katie Oven

Chinese vs. World Bank development projects: Insights from earth observation and computer vision on wealth gains in Africa, 2002–2013

Adel Daoud, Cindy Conlin and Connor T. Jerzak

Agri-labour mobility in a changing climate: A systems approach to vulnerability and precarity among migrant farmworkers

Sinem Kavak, Mine Işlar and Lennart Olsson

Complexity in institutional reform

Jean-Paul Faguet

Introduction: Socialist industrialization, deskilling, and reducing the gap between mental and manual labor in China

Joel Andreas, Ngai Pun, Jacob Eyferth and Yige Dong

Beyond overall income inequality: Racial income gaps and health disparities

Gedeão Locks and Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez

Conflict and democratic preferences

Nicole Stoelinga and Tuuli Tähtinen

Developing a multidimensional resilience index for farm households: A food system approach

Margherita Squarcina, Juliane Hänsch, Florena M. Montoya Cepeda, Magdalena Pallauf, Bruno Paz, Jonas Stehl, Jasmin Wehner and Meike Wollni

De-modernizing energy justice: Ivan Illich and the struggles for pluriversal territorialities in the Global South

Carlos Tornel

Urbanisation and the political demography of African cities

Nick Dorward and Kristian Hoelscher

Improving police management boosts economic development: Evidence from Brazil

Bruno Pantaleão

Individual entrepreneurial orientation from an economic lens: The U-shaped relationship with economic development and income inequality

Juan P. Perez, Izaias Martins, Sebastian Aparicio, Tatiana Lopez and David Urbano

The development revolution will not be nudged: The c2-frame approach as a proposal

Juan Camilo Cardenas

Hidden work-family challenges in the low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review of causes, consequences, and policy responses

Keonhi Son and Aysegul Kayaoglu

Sustainability governance diversifies: unpacking private-sector governance strategies in coffee and cocoa value chains

Samuel Bruelisauer, Gesabel Villar and Christoph Oberlack

Reservoir construction and deforestation

Huanguang Qiu, Yao Tang and Wei Chen

Who runs the NGOs? Women’s access to leadership in Nepal

Ingrid Vik Bakken and Johannes Vüllers

Benchmarking property institutions: conceptual background and evidence from 85 jurisdictions

Klaus Deininger, Thea Hilhorst, Emmanuel Nkurunziza and Jaap Zevenbergen

Do ‘Women hold up half the sky’ in fuel choices? Revisiting the role of adolescent empowerment in a developing country context

Somdeep Chatterjee and Prashant Poddar

Lithium for the global energy transition: how global forces and national legacies are driving resource-based development in South America

Martín Obaya and Teresa Kramarz

Measuring national entrepreneurial ecosystems in Africa

Erik Stam, Phumlani Nkontwana, Robert McDonald, Rafiki Murenzi, Kwabena Aboah Addo, Blaise Bayuo, Belinda Baah, Stefan Riezebos and Tim Gelissen

Can cash improve diet quality in old age? evidence from a large-scale unconditional transfer

Deivis Nicolas Guzman-Tordecilla, Antonio Trujillo, Shu Wen Ng and Andres I. Vecino-Ortiz

Volume 201, issue C, 2026

Can indigenous political representation improve forest conservation? India’s experience

Bina Agarwal, Shamindra Nath Roy and Shiva Chakravarti Sharma

A behavioral approach to social security compliance targeting self-employed workers in Brazil

Mariano Bosch, Danilo Silva and Juan M. Villa

Digging deep: Resource exploitation and higher education

Lenin H. Balza, Camilo De Los Rios and Nathaly M. Rivera

Introduction to special issue: The policy consequences of social movements

Santiago Anria, Candelaria Garay and Jessica A.J. Rich

Community norms, peer influence, and women’s digital financial inclusion: evidence from India

Rashmi Arora, Supriya Garikipati and Sukhpreet Kaur

Studying economic black holes: Lessons from North Korea

Stephan Haggard, Kyoochul Kim and Munseob Lee

Climate change vulnerability and the resilience of energy consumption

Xu Zhang, Shoufa Hu, Muhammad Abubakr Naeem and Abdul Rauf

On risk-based poverty traps

Christopher Barrett and Heather Schofield

The order behind disorder: informality, power, and the resilience of a transport policy trap in Lima, Peru

Eduardo Dargent and Skarlet Olivera

Insuring those who bear the risk: The impact of gender-inclusive framing on insurance uptake in Kenya

Julian Arteaga, Michael R Carter and Andrew Hobbs

Decentralization and the persistence of centralized power in Liberia

Viljar Haavik and Alessio Iocchi

ICT diffusion, gender inclusion, and structural transformation in Africa: A synergistic analysis for sustainable development

Ekene ThankGod Emeka, Simplice Asongu and Vanessa S. Tchamyou

Climate stressors and rural incomes: multi-country evidence on wealth, gender, and age disparities

Nicholas J. Sitko, Irene Staffieri, Jan Martin Rossi, Esther Heesemann, Jessika Kluth, Romina Cavatassi, Priti Rajagopalan, Luis Becerra Valbuena and Carlo Azzarri

Dutch disease and the resource curse: the progression of views from exchange rates to women’s agency and well-being

Nidhiya Menon and Yana Rodgers

What we have learned since Rostow

François Bourguignon and Jean-Philippe Platteau

On Violent Conflict, Land Scarcity, and Power in an urban Frontier in Congo

Kasper Hoffmann, Christian Lund, Eric Batumike Banyanga, Alice Mugoli Nalunva and Mariève Pouliot

Volume 200, issue C, 2026

Does institutional design matter? Constitutional regime types and party system closure in Asia

Don S. Lee and Fernando Casal Bértoa

Trade agreements and sustainable fisheries

Basak Bayramoglu, Estelle Gozlan, Clément Nedoncelle and Thibaut Tarabbia

Citizen science, mobile technology, and environmental justice in Africa: rights-based legal pathways for community empowerment

Philippa Osim Inyang

Power and its discontents: The long road to systemic change in the aid sector

Nicola Banks, Badru Bukenya, Willem Elbers, Innocent Kamya, Emmanuel Kumi, Lau Schulpen, Gijs van Selm, Margit van Wessel and Thomas Yeboah

Humor for health: a randomized controlled trial of clown visits in Palestinian hospitals

Melanie Gräser, Christine Grimm and Roman Hoffmann

Conflicts and prosocial preferences

Dawoon Jung

Genocide, women’s empowerment, and intergenerational transmission of violent attitudes

Daniel Kammer and Alina Greiner-Filsinger

Empathy in action: unravelling crowdfunding dynamics for female refugee entrepreneurs in Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine

Ricardo Emanuel-Correia, Syahirah Abdul-Rahman and Doaa Althalathini

Impact of climate change adaptation on welfare and child nutrition of farm households in rural Ethiopia: A panel data analysis

Taye T. Fisiha and John McPeak

Catastrophe’s long reach: How historical natural disasters shape modern entrepreneurship?

Weihua Yu, Jinfei Niu, Xin Yao and Chenchen Deng

Poor performance of west Sumatran governments in resolving palm oil conflicts: a procedural justice perspective

Afrizal,, Eka Vydia Putra and Linda Elida

Policies for aspirations. And opportunities

Noël Muller, Anna Fruttero, Óscar Calvo-González and Jacobus de Hoop

DEVELOPMENT AS EQUALITY: A gender lens on progress and its hidden barriers

Bina Agarwal

Clientelist politics in Nigeria: Core voters, control and compliance

Diane Zovighian

Populism and global infrastructure investment

Lulu Pan, Eddie Chi-Man Hui and Jianfu Shen

Government data accessibility and firm dynamics: Encouraging entrepreneurship or accelerating exit?

Desheng Wu and Yu Xie

Restricting mothers’ international migration and human capital investment

Takuya Hasebe, Yuma Noritomo and Bilesha Weeraratne

Does free maternity care improve uptake and save lives? Quasi-experimental evidence from Kenya

Roxanne Kovacs

The long shadow of natural disasters: educational impacts of the 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh

Chowdhury Abdullah-Al-Baki and Ali Ahmed

The defanging effect of education and autocratic survival

Raouf Boucekkine, Rodolphe Desbordes and Paolo Melindi-Ghidi

Labor law and workplace injuries

Rafael Piñeiro Rodríguez, Fernando Rosenblatt and Emiliano Tealde

Using spatial data to identify food accessibility in large African cities

Jordan Blekking, Kurt Waldman, Lisa-Marie Hemerijckx and Mboyonga Kaputula

Resilience of what and for whom? Climate change mitigation and adaptation in the global, Ethiopian, and Tanzanian coffee sectors

Janina Grabs, Gezahegn Berecha Yadessa, Marc Castellón Durán, Adugna Eneyew Bekele, Caleb Gallemore, Weyessa Garedew Terefe, Shitaye Gure Lemessa, Marta Hailemariam Mamo, Kasongi, Ng’winamila Donald, Melkamu Mamuye Kebede, Daniel Andwale Mwalutolo, Ina Niehues, Christine Noe, Stefano Ponte, Guta Regasa Megerssa, Pilly Silvano, Nestory Yamungu and Kristjan Jespersen

The dual role of small-scale fisheries on food security and poverty eradication in Vietnam: A latent profile analysis

Quach Thi Khanh Ngoc, Bui Bich Xuan and Pham Khanh Nam

Contested forests: how transnational networks mitigate and reproduce conflict

Shawkat Alam and Jona Razzaque

Barriers or catalysts? Traditional institutions and social mobility in rural India

Vegard Iversen, Anustup Kundu, Rahul Lahoti and Kunal Sen

Settlements as dispossession: Forest conservation and frontiers’ violence in Mau Forest, Kenya

Marie Müller-Koné and Kennedy Mkutu

Unemployment impact of network sectors and employment protection legislation reforms: Evidence from selected african countries

Kwamivi Mawuli Gomado and Isaac Amedanou

50 Years of World Development

Eduardo Araral and Serik Orazgaliyev

Immigration, hukou system and crime: Evidence from China

Huan Liu and Taotao Shen

Has land finance driven China’s economic growth? Evidence from a quantitative counterfactual analysis

Yongmin Luo, Shenqi Ding, Xi Luo and Lujun Wang

What will it mean to end poverty?

Joshua D. Merfeld and Jonathan Morduch

On social inequality, financial inclusion, and poverty at the bottom of the pyramid: Is financial equity enough?

Charles B. Herron, Rahul Nilakantan, Deepak Iyengar, Robert Glenn Richey and Shashank Rao