Release of the final report of the International Comparison Program (ICP) and publication of new estimates of purchasing power parities (PPPs) in World Development Indicators 2008 are an important statistical milestone. The estimates offer a consistent and comprehensive set of data on the cost of living in developed and developing countries, the first since 1997, when the results of the previous ICP data collection were published in World Development Indicators. The 2005 data cover 146 countries and territories, 29 more than the last round in 1993, and many for the first time.

Climate resilient cities a primer on reducing vulnerabilities to disasters is prepared as a guide for local governments in the East Asia Region to better understand the concepts and consequences of climate change; how climate change consequences contribute to urban vulnerabilities; and what is being done by city governments in East Asia and around the world to actively engage in learning, capacity building, and capital investment programs for building sustainable, resilient communities.

This book covers the early years of the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), commonly known as the World Bank when it first confronted the issue of development as a fundamental part of its mission. The book is mainly concerned with how the Bank interpreted its mission and, more specifically, how its mission was born: what events shaped it, what cultural and ideological background influenced it and what was the historical context in which it arose.

China and India have grown rapidly in importance in the global economy over the past two decades the same period in which hardware and software have become important tradable products in the global economy. China has reached global scale in the hardware industry but not in software; India has achieved the reverse. These recent developments offer new insights into the ways in which new industries can take root and flourish within the broader context of developing economies.

The carbon market endured its most challenging year to date in 2009. The global economic crisis, which started in late 2008 and intensified early in 2009, negatively impacted both the demand and supply sides of the market. As industrial output plummeted the demand for carbon assets fell. Yet even as global GDP declined by 0.6 percent in 2009, and at a more perilous rate of 3.2 percent in industrialized economies, the carbon market demonstrated resilience.

This paper summarizes the policy-relevant insights of a generation of research on scale economies. Scale economies in production are of three types: internal economies associated with large plants, localization economies that come from sharing of inputs and infrastructure and from greater competition among firms, and urbanization economies that are generated through diversity and knowledge spillovers. The benefits (and costs) of localization and urbanization are together called “external (dis) economies” because they arise due to factors outside any single household, farm or firm.

This paper constitutes the third and final volume of a series of assessments of the World Bank Group's engagement with climate change issues. The first focused on World Bank involvement in policy issues related to greenhouse gas mitigation. It was mainly concerned with the potential for energy price reform and energy efficiency policies to yield dividends in growth, fiscal savings, and climate change mitigation. The second volume examined project-level lessons related to greenhouse gas mitigation.

This paper analyzes real estate market dynamics over the past decade in the city of Ahmedabad, India, with a view to improving the living conditions of the large population living in slums. The paper combines census data, the National Sample Survey, and slum household surveys to review the demand side of the market. Satellite photography was used to estimate the production of both formal and informal housing over the past ten years. Analysis of the execution of the development plan for the Ahmedabad region and town planning schemes shows how the system of housing supply has evolved.

The total value of the carbon market grew by 11 percent in 2011, to $176 billion, and transaction volumes reached a new high of 10.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). This growth took place in the face of economic turbulence, growing long-term oversupply in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and plummeting carbon prices. By far, the largest segment of the carbon market was that of EU Allowances (EUAs), valued at $148 billion.

After five consecutive years of robust growth, the total value of the global carbon market stalled at $142 billion. Suffering from the lack of post-2012 regulatory clarity, the value of the primary Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) market fell by double-digits for the third year in a row, ending lower than it was in 2005, the first year of the Kyoto protocol. The Assigned Amount Unit (AAU) and the United States Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) markets shrank as well.

Scientific evidence indicates that global warming could well lead to a sea-level rise of 1 meter or more in the 21st century. This paper seeks to quantify how a 1-meter sea-level rise that would affect coastal wetlands in 76 developing countries and territories, taking into account how much of wetlands would be submerged and how likely the wetlands would move inland as the coastline recedes. It is estimated that approximately 64 percent of the freshwater marsh, 66 percent of Global Lakes and Wetlands Database coastal wetlands, and 61 percent of brackish/saline wetlands are at risk.

The Mapping Carbon Pricing Initiatives Report maps existing and emerging carbon pricing initiatives around the world. It does not provide a quantitative, transaction-based analysis of the international carbon market since current market conditions invalidate any attempt to undertake such an analysis. The development of national and subnational carbon pricing initiatives in an increasing number of countries calls for a different focus.