Academic research is a major source of data-driven insights. These insights are crucial for helping policymakers manage public resources, develop policies, and help ordinary people understand the world around them. However, academic research is not distributed equally across countries. As previous studies have shown, wealthier countries are more likely to be the subject of scholars’ research.
The World Bank is a major source of academic research. Policy Research Working Papers (PRWPs) are the World Bank’s flagship deliverables. These papers are intended to provide insights for policymakers in the World Bank’s client countries (mainly low- and middle-income countries). What role do these World Bank publications play in filling the gap in empirical academic research for the World Bank’s clients?
To test this, we build on the approach of Stacy, Kitzmüller, Wang, Mahler, and Serajuddin (2024) to classify empirical academic papers based on their use of data. We compare the number of empirical academic papers and World Bank policy research working papers by country.
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