The PSD Blog

The Private Sector Development Blog (PSD Blog) gathers together news, resources and ideas about the role of private enterprise in fighting poverty. The blog is informal and represents the quirks and opinions of the bloggers, not the World Bank Group. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Our objective

• To provide intelligent comment on private sector development issues in the news.
• To highlight new Web sites, articles and books that development practitioners might find useful.
• To provide a link between the detailed resources on the World Bank Group’s Rapid Response Web site, and the ever changing world of the blogosphere.

Our hosts

The PSD Blog is maintained by the World Bank Group’s Rapid Response knowledge service, which specializes in policy advice on business environment reform and privatization policy in developing countries. Rapid Response is a joint knowledge initiative of the World Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC). Information on the mission and products offered by Rapid Response is available online.

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All of the PSD Blog authors are members of the World Bank Group. Their posts are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the World Bank Group, its Board of Directors or the governments they represent. For more information, please see our content policy above.

The regulars

Mohammad Amin is a Private Sector Development Specialist with the Enterprise Analysis Unit of the Financial and Private Sector Development Vice Presidency. His recent work focuses on the determinants and effects of various elements of the business climate, including the effect of labor regulation on employment and computer usage, determinants of competition and its effect on labor productivity in India’s retail sector, and the determinants of business reforms. Before joining the Enterprise Analysis Unit, Mohammad worked as a consultant with the Development Economics Research Group (DECRG-Trade) of the World Bank, where he worked on issues related to international migration and trade in services. Mohammad holds a PhD in Economics from Columbia University, New York.

Janine Firpo is President of Sevak Solutions, a nonprofit company that she co-founded to promote inclusive systems for the delivery of financial services to the world’s 1.7 billion urban and rural poor. She is working with IFC’s regional advisory teams to accelerate the development and large-scale roll-out of mobile money solutions in East Asia and the Pacific. Janine brings over 24 years experience in technology, international development, and consortium building to her efforts. For the past six years, she has focused exclusively on the role of information and communications technologies in the extension of financial services. She is a pioneer in the implementation of branchless banking solutions and has worked on a range of related issues in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Ryan Hahn is a consultant for the joint World Bank-IFC Financial and Private Sector Development Vice Presidency and manages the PSD blog. Before starting at the World Bank Group, Ryan did research on the intersection of private finance and education at the Institute for Higher Education Policy. An earlier life saw him living in central Europe, attempting to learn the Romani (Gypsy) language in the Czech Republic. Ryan holds a masters degree in international development from Johns Hopkins University.   

Michael Jarvis is a corporate responsibility specialist for the Business, Competitiveness & Development Program at the World Bank Institute. He leads several initiatives on global corporate responsibility and sustainable private sector development, including a global learning program on Business and the Millennium Development Goals. Prior to joining the World Bank, Michael worked as a consultant on historical corporate responsibility and legal compliance issues with Fortune 500 companies as well as promoting transparency in the arms trade. Once a part time DJ in his native England, he can regularly be found in obscure local music venues to hear up and coming bands.

David Kaplan is a labor economist who joined the Enterprise Analysis Unit in 2007. His recent areas of research include the effect of business registration procedures on business start-ups, labor-market rigidities, and empirical analyses of labor tribunals. At present he is analyzing the effects of trade on wages as well as the reasons behind inefficiencies in courts. His prior experience includes seven years at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) as an assistant professor and two years at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as a research economist. David holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University.

David Lawrence works on advisory services programs targeting private sector development, including regulatory reform, small business development, agribusiness supply-chains, shrimp pond managament, investment promotion, and many more. He has worked with IFC since 1996, when he was sent to a small Ukrainian town to set up a small business advisory center. Since then, Dave has focused on post-conflict and post-disaster posts, ideally where water, heat, and electricity are in short supply. In the 1990s he worked in Armenia, Georgia, and Russia, and more recently in the Tsunami-ravaged province on Aceh, Indonesia. Currently he is working in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, the coldest capital city in the world. You can follow his every frozen move at his personal blog, Out of Mongolia.   

Giulio Quaggiotto works as a program officer in Knowledge and Innovation for the Environment and Social Development Department of the IFC. Prior to joining the World Bank Group, he worked at the United Nations University in Yokohama, Japan, and was Knowledge Manager for WWF International. Apart from obscure technologies and pandas, Giulio's interests include Slavic philology and kitsch paraphernalia (you know, snowdomes and the lot) - which combined make him the last person you'd want to be stuck in a lift with.

Blogger emeritus

Pablo Halkyard was a private sector development associate in the joint World Bank-IFC Private Sector Development Vice-Presidency and for the IFC Chief-Economist. Along with Tim Harford he was the original founder of the PSD Blog.  Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked at an international strategy consultancy specializing on country and project risk analysis. In July 2006 he left the World Bank and is currently at New York University. He is still trying to catch-up to Tim and finish his first book.

Tim Harford was an economist at the International Finance Corporation and was, with Pablo Halkyard, one of the original founders of PSD Blog. His book of popular economics, The Undercover Economist was published in late 2005. He is also the author, with Michael Klein, of The Market for Aid. In January 2006 he left the IFC to join the Financial Times as a columnist. You can find his latest writings online at TimHarford.com.

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About the authors