Economics & Development

This paper develops a method to predict comparable income and consumption distributions for all countries in the world from a simple regression with a handful of country-level variables. To fit the model, the analysis uses more than 2,000 distributions from household surveys covering 168 countries from the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform. More than 1,000 economic, demographic, and remote sensing predictors from multiple databases are used to test the models. A model is selected that balances out-of-sample accuracy, simplicity, and the share of countries for which the method can be applied. The paper finds that a simple model relying on gross domestic product per capita, under-5 mortality rate, life expectancy, and rural population share gives almost the same accuracy as a complex machine learning model using 1,000 indicators jointly. The method allows for easy distributional analysis in countries with extreme data deprivation where survey data are unavailable or severely outdated, several of which are likely among the poorest countries in the world.

Western Balkan countries are consistent participants in international learning assessments like the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Progress in International Reading Literacy (PIRLS). This publication provides an analysis of the recently published data of the PISA 2022 and PIRLS 2021 studies. This study identified four key areas where the performance of Western Balkan education systems can be improved. They include: (a) duration of learning in schools, (b) teaching practices, (c) school preparedness, and (d) use of smartphones in schools induced by COVID-related school closures that serve as a major distractor from learning. Based on the analysis, the publication provides policy options and recommendations on advancing the education systems of Western Balkan countries to improve learning outcomes that are critically important for the future well-being of students and the economic development of these countries.