IndicatorName: Personal remittances, paid (current US$)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Remittance transactions have grown in importance over the past decade. In a number of developing economies, receipts of remittances have become an important and stable source of funds that exceeds receipts from exports of goods and services or from financial inflows on foreign direct investment. But the quality of statistical remittance data is not high. Remittances are a challenge to measure because of their nature. They are heterogeneous with numerous small transactions conducted by individuals through a wide variety of channels: formal channels, such as electronic wire, or through informal channels, such as cash or goods carried across borders. The large number of remittance transactions and the multitude of channels pose challenges to the compilation of comprehensive statistics. The small size of individual transactions means that they often go undetected by typical data source systems, although the aggregate level of transactions may be substantial.

Because of difficulties in obtaining data on informal remittance transactions, the remittance transactions undertaken through informal channels are sometimes not well covered in current balance of payments data. As a result, even though direct measurement of remittances - through transactions reporting or surveys - may be considered preferable if feasible, some countries instead combine different sources and estimation methods to achieve better coverage, by using direct measurements where practical and supplemented estimates where they are not. Model-based approaches are used in some countries as they are flexible. Compilers can design models to fill gaps in data sources or to provide global totals.

However, only reliable input data can lead to sound estimates, regardless of the sophistication of an estimation method or econometric model. Indirect data are converted to remittance estimates using a set of assumptions. These assumptions should be plausible, but it is often not possible to test or verify these assumptions and also the results in practice.

Longdefinition: Personal remittances comprise personal transfers and compensation of employees. Personal transfers consist of all current transfers in cash or in kind made or received by resident households to or from nonresident households. Personal transfers thus include all current transfers between resident and nonresident individuals. Compensation of employees refers to the income of border, seasonal, and other short-term workers who are employed in an economy where they are not resident and of residents employed by nonresident entities. Data are the sum of two items defined in the sixth edition of the IMF's Balance of Payments Manual: personal transfers and compensation of employees. Data are in current U.S. dollars.

Source: World Bank staff estimates based on IMF balance of payments data.

Topic: Economic Policy & Debt: Balance of payments: Current account: Transfers


Aggregationmethod: Weighted average

Generalcomments: Note: Data starting from 2005 are based on the sixth edition of the IMF's Balance of Payments Manual (BPM6).

IndicatorName: Foreign direct investment, net inflows (% of GDP)

License_Type: CC BY-4.0

Limitationsandexceptions:
FDI data do not give a complete picture of international investment in an economy. Balance of payments data on FDI do not include capital raised locally, an important source of investment financing in some developing countries. In addition, FDI data omit nonequity cross-border transactions such as intra-unit flows of goods and services.

The volume of global private financial flows reported by the World Bank generally differs from that reported by other sources because of differences in sources, classification of economies, and method used to adjust and disaggregate reported information. In addition, particularly for debt financing, differences may also reflect how some installments of the transactions and certain offshore issuances are treated.

Data on equity flows are shown for all countries for which data are available.

Longdefinition: Foreign direct investment are the net inflows of investment to acquire a lasting management interest (10 percent or more of voting stock) in an enterprise operating in an economy other than that of the investor. It is the sum of equity capital, reinvestment of earnings, other long-term capital, and short-term capital as shown in the balance of payments. This series shows net inflows (new investment inflows less disinvestment) in the reporting economy from foreign investors, and is divided by GDP.

Periodicity: Annual

Source: International Monetary Fund, International Financial Statistics and Balance of Payments databases, World Bank, International Debt Statistics, and World Bank and OECD GDP estimates.

Topic: Economic Policy & Debt: Balance of payments: Capital & financial account


Aggregationmethod: Sum

Generalcomments: Note: Data are based on the sixth edition of the IMF's Balance of Payments Manual (BPM6) and are only available from 2005 onwards.

IndicatorName: Personal transfers, receipts (BoP, current US$)

Longdefinition: Personal transfers consist of all current transfers in cash or in kind made or received by resident households to or from nonresident households. Personal transfers thus include all current transfers between resident and nonresident individuals. Data are in current U.S. dollars.

Source: International Monetary Fund, Balance of Payments Statistics Yearbook and data files.


Generalcomments: Stock market data were previously sourced from Standard & Poor's until they discontinued their "Global Stock Markets Factbook" and database in April 2013. Time series have been replaced in December 2015 with data from the World Federation of Exchanges and may differ from the previous S&P definitions and methodology.

IndicatorName: Market capitalization of listed domestic companies (% of GDP)

Limitationsandexceptions: Data cover measures of size (market capitalization, number of listed domestic companies) and liquidity (value of shares traded as a percentage of gross domestic product, value of shares traded as a percentage of market capitalization). The comparability of such data across countries may be limited by conceptual and statistical weaknesses, such as inaccurate reporting and differences in accounting standards.

Longdefinition: Market capitalization (also known as market value) is the share price times the number of shares outstanding (including their several classes) for listed domestic companies. Investment funds, unit trusts, and companies whose only business goal is to hold shares of other listed companies are excluded. Data are end of year values.

Source: World Federation of Exchanges database.

Topic: Financial Sector: Capital markets


IndicatorName: Access to electricity (% of population)

Longdefinition: Access to electricity is the percentage of population with access to electricity. Electrification data are collected from industry, national surveys and international sources.

Source: World Bank, Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) database from the SE4ALL Global Tracking Framework led jointly by the World Bank, International Energy Agency, and the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program.

Topic: Environment: Energy production & use


Generalcomments: Restricted use: Please contact the International Energy Agency for third-party use of these data.

IndicatorName: Electric power consumption (kWh per capita)

License_Type: Use and distribution of these data are subject to IEA terms and conditions.

Limitationsandexceptions:
Data on electric power production and consumption are collected from national energy agencies by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and adjusted by the IEA to meet international definitions. Data are reported as net consumption as opposed to gross consumption. Net consumption excludes the energy consumed by the generating units. For all countries except the United States, total electric power consumption is equal total net electricity generation plus electricity imports minus electricity exports minus electricity distribution losses.

The IEA makes these estimates in consultation with national statistical offices, oil companies, electric utilities, and national energy experts. The IEA occasionally revises its time series to reflect political changes, and energy statistics undergo continual changes in coverage or methodology as more detailed energy accounts become available. Breaks in series are therefore unavoidable.

Longdefinition: Electric power consumption measures the production of power plants and combined heat and power plants less transmission, distribution, and transformation losses and own use by heat and power plants.

Source: IEA Statistics © OECD/IEA 2014 (http://www.iea.org/stats/index.asp), subject to https://www.iea.org/t&c/termsandconditions/


IndicatorName: Population density (people per sq. km of land area)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Current population estimates for developing countries that lack recent census data and pre- and post-census estimates for countries with census data are provided by the United Nations Population Division and other agencies. The cohort component method - a standard method for estimating and projecting population - requires fertility, mortality, and net migration data, often collected from sample surveys, which can be small or limited in coverage. Population estimates are from demographic modeling and so are susceptible to biases and errors from shortcomings in the model and in the data. Because the five-year age group is the cohort unit and five-year period data are used, interpolations to obtain annual data or single age structure may not reflect actual events or age composition.

The quality and reliability of official demographic data are also affected by public trust in the government, government commitment to full and accurate enumeration, confidentiality and protection against misuse of census data, and census agencies' independence from political influence. Moreover, comparability of population indicators is limited by differences in the concepts, definitions, collection procedures, and estimation methods used by national statistical agencies and other organizations that collect the data.

Longdefinition: Population density is midyear population divided by land area in square kilometers. Population is based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship--except for refugees not permanently settled in the country of asylum, who are generally considered part of the population of their country of origin. Land area is a country's total area, excluding area under inland water bodies, national claims to continental shelf, and exclusive economic zones. In most cases the definition of inland water bodies includes major rivers and lakes.

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization and World Bank population estimates.

Topic: Environment: Density & urbanization


Aggregationmethod: Median

Generalcomments: Country-specific metadata can be found on the IMF’s FAS website at  http://fas.imf.org.

IndicatorName: Automated teller machines (ATMs) (per 100,000 adults)

Limitationsandexceptions: Population-based ratios of the number of branches and ATMs assume a uniform distribution of bank outlets within a country's area and across its population, while in most countries bank branches and ATMs are concentrated in urban centers of the country and are accessible only to some individuals.

Longdefinition: Automated teller machines are computerized telecommunications devices that provide clients of a financial institution with access to financial transactions in a public place.

Source: International Monetary Fund, Financial Access Survey.

Topic: Financial Sector: Access


IndicatorName: Borrowers from commercial banks (per 1,000 adults)

Limitationsandexceptions: For several countries, data cover all borrowers including commercial banks, credit unions and financial cooperatives, deposit taking microfinance institutions, and other deposit takers. These include all resident financial corporations and quasi-corporations (except the central bank) that are mainly engaged in financial intermediation and that issue liabilities included in the national definition of broad money. These institutions have varying names in different countries, such as savings and loan associations, building societies, rural banks and agricultural banks, post office giro institutions, post office savings banks, savings banks, and money market funds.

Longdefinition: Borrowers from commercial banks are the reported number of resident customers that are nonfinancial corporations (public and private) and households who obtained loans from commercial banks and other banks functioning as commercial banks. For many countries data cover the total number of loan accounts due to lack of information on loan account holders.


IndicatorName: Consumer price index (2010 = 100)

Limitationsandexceptions: Consumer price indexes should be interpreted with caution. The definition of a household, the basket of goods, and the geographic (urban or rural) and income group coverage of consumer price surveys can vary widely by country. In addition, weights are derived from household expenditure surveys, which, for budgetary reasons, tend to be conducted infrequently in developing countries, impairing comparability over time. Although useful for measuring consumer price inflation within a country, consumer price indexes are of less value in comparing countries.

Longdefinition: Consumer price index reflects changes in the cost to the average consumer of acquiring a basket of goods and services that may be fixed or changed at specified intervals, such as yearly. The Laspeyres formula is generally used. Data are period averages.

Source: International Monetary Fund, International Financial Statistics and data files.

Topic: Financial Sector: Exchange rates & prices


IndicatorName: Inflation, consumer prices (annual %)

Longdefinition: Inflation as measured by the consumer price index reflects the annual percentage change in the cost to the average consumer of acquiring a basket of goods and services that may be fixed or changed at specified intervals, such as yearly. The Laspeyres formula is generally used.


IndicatorName: Domestic credit provided by financial sector (% of GDP)

Limitationsandexceptions: In a few countries governments may hold international reserves as deposits in the banking system rather than in the central bank. Since claims on the central government are a net item (claims on the central government minus central government deposits), the figure may be negative, resulting in a negative figure for domestic credit provided by the banking sector.

Longdefinition: Domestic credit provided by the financial sector includes all credit to various sectors on a gross basis, with the exception of credit to the central government, which is net. The financial sector includes monetary authorities and deposit money banks, as well as other financial corporations where data are available (including corporations that do not accept transferable deposits but do incur such liabilities as time and savings deposits). Examples of other financial corporations are finance and leasing companies, money lenders, insurance corporations, pension funds, and foreign exchange companies.

Source: International Monetary Fund, International Financial Statistics and data files, and World Bank and OECD GDP estimates.

Topic: Financial Sector: Assets


IndicatorName: Domestic credit to private sector (% of GDP)

Limitationsandexceptions: Credit to the private sector may sometimes include credit to state-owned or partially state-owned enterprises.

Longdefinition: Domestic credit to private sector refers to financial resources provided to the private sector by financial corporations, such as through loans, purchases of nonequity securities, and trade credits and other accounts receivable, that establish a claim for repayment. For some countries these claims include credit to public enterprises. The financial corporations include monetary authorities and deposit money banks, as well as other financial corporations where data are available (including corporations that do not accept transferable deposits but do incur such liabilities as time and savings deposits). Examples of other financial corporations are finance and leasing companies, money lenders, insurance corporations, pension funds, and foreign exchange companies.


Generalcomments: Each economy is classified based on the classification of World Bank Group's fiscal year 2018 (July 1, 2017-June 30, 2018).

IndicatorName: Research and development expenditure (% of GDP)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Estimates of the resources allocated to R&D are affected by national characteristics such as the periodicity and coverage of national R&D surveys across institutional sectors and industries; and the use of different sampling and estimation methods. R&D typically involves a few large performers, hence R&D surveys use various techniques to maintain up-to-date registers of known performers, while attempting to identify new or occasional performers.

R&D totals from SNA accounts may differ from these estimates, due in part to the different treatments of software R&D in the totals.

Longdefinition: Gloss domestic expenditures on research and development (R&D), expressed as a percent of GDP. They include both capital and current expenditures in the four main sectors: Business enterprise, Government, Higher education and Private non-profit. R&D covers basic research, applied research, and experimental development.

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics

Topic: Infrastructure: Technology


IndicatorName: Tax revenue (% of GDP)

Limitationsandexceptions:
For most countries central government finance data have been consolidated into one account, but for others only budgetary central government accounts are available. Countries reporting budgetary data are noted in the country metadata. Because budgetary accounts may not include all central government units (such as social security funds), they usually provide an incomplete picture. In federal states the central government accounts provide an incomplete view of total public finance.

Data on government revenue and expense are collected by the IMF through questionnaires to member countries and by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Despite IMF efforts to standardize data collection, statistics are often incomplete, untimely, and not comparable across countries.

Longdefinition: Tax revenue refers to compulsory transfers to the central government for public purposes. Certain compulsory transfers such as fines, penalties, and most social security contributions are excluded. Refunds and corrections of erroneously collected tax revenue are treated as negative revenue.

Source: International Monetary Fund, Government Finance Statistics Yearbook and data files, and World Bank and OECD GDP estimates.

Topic: Public Sector: Government finance: Revenue


IndicatorName: Taxes on income, profits and capital gains (% of total taxes)

Longdefinition: Taxes on income, profits, and capital gains are levied on the actual or presumptive net income of individuals, on the profits of corporations and enterprises, and on capital gains, whether realized or not, on land, securities, and other assets. Intragovernmental payments are eliminated in consolidation.

Source: International Monetary Fund, Government Finance Statistics Yearbook and data files.


Generalcomments: Data are presented for the survey year instead of publication year. Data before 2013 are not comparable with data from 2013 onward due to methodological changes.

IndicatorName: Ease of doing business index (1=most business-friendly regulations)

Limitationsandexceptions: The Doing Business methodology has limitations that should be considered when interpreting the data. First, the data collected refer to businesses in the economy's largest city and may not represent regulations in other locations of the economy. To address this limitation, subnational indicators are being collected for selected economies. These subnational studies point to significant differences in the speed of reform and the ease of doing business across cities in the same economy. Second, the data often focus on a specific business form - generally a limited liability company of a specified size - and may not represent regulation for other types of businesses such as sole proprietorships. Third, transactions described in a standardized business case refer to a specific set of issues and may not represent the full set of issues a business encounters. Fourth, the time measures involve an element of judgment by the expert respondents. When sources indicate different estimates, the Doing Business time indicators represent the median values of several responses given under the assumptions of the standardized case. Fifth, the methodology assumes that a business has full information on what is required and does not waste time when completing procedures.

Longdefinition: Ease of doing business ranks economies from 1 to 190, with first place being the best. A high ranking (a low numerical rank) means that the regulatory environment is conducive to business operation. The index averages the country's percentile rankings on 10 topics covered in the World Bank's Doing Business. The ranking on each topic is the simple average of the percentile rankings on its component indicators.

Source: World Bank, Doing Business project (http://www.doingbusiness.org/).

Topic: Private Sector & Trade: Business environment


Aggregationmethod: Unweighted average

Generalcomments: For cross-country comparability, only limited liability corporations that operate in the formal sector are included.

IndicatorName: New business density (new registrations per 1,000 people ages 15-64)

Limitationsandexceptions:
The definition of entrepreneurship used is limited to the formal sector. Yet, it should be noted that the exclusion of the informal sector is based on the difficulties of quantifying the number of firms that compose it, rather than on its relevance for developing economies. The Entrepreneurship Database facilitates the analysis of the growth of the formal private sector and the identification of factors that encourage firms to begin operations in or transition to the formal sector. Data is collected all limited liability corporations regardless of size. Partnerships and sole proprietorships are not considered in the analysis due to the differences with respect to their definition and regulation worldwide. Data on the number of total or closed firms are not included due to heterogeneity in how these entities are defined and measured.

The data itself only provides a snapshot of a given economy's business demographics, and cannot by itself explain the factors that affect the business creation cycle. However, when the Entrepreneurship Database is combined with other data such as the Doing Business Report, Investment Climate Assessments, and/or OECD Entrepreneurship Indicators, researchers and policymakers can better understand the dynamics of the business creation process.

The Entrepreneurship Database is a critical source of data that facilitates the measurement of entrepreneurial activity across countries and over time. The data also allows for a deeper understanding of the relationship between new firm registration, the regulatory environment, and economic growth. Previous research using the Entrepreneurship Database has shown a significant relationship between the level of cost, time, and procedures required to start a business and new firm registration.

Longdefinition: New businesses registered are the number of new limited liability corporations registered in the calendar year.

Source: World Bank's Entrepreneurship Survey and database (http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploretopics/entrepreneurship).


IndicatorName: New businesses registered (number)

Limitationsandexceptions:
The definition of entrepreneurship used is limited to the formal sector. Yet, it should be noted that the exclusion of the informal sector is based on the difficulties of quantifying the number of firms that compose it, rather than on its relevance for developing economies. The Entrepreneurship Database facilitates the analysis of the growth of the formal private sector and the identification of factors that encourage firms to begin operations in or transition to the formal sector. Data is collected all limited liability corporations regardless of size. Partnerships and sole proprietorships are not considered in the analysis due to the differences with respect to their definition and regulation worldwide. Data on the number of total or closed firms are not included due to heterogeneity in how these entities are defined and measured.

The Entrepreneurship Database is a critical source of data that facilitates the measurement of entrepreneurial activity across countries and over time. The data also allows for a deeper understanding of the relationship between new firm registration, the regulatory environment, and economic growth. Previous research using the Entrepreneurship Database has shown a significant relationship between the level of cost, time, and procedures required to start a business and new firm registration.

To facilitate cross-country comparability, the Entrepreneurship Database employs a consistent unit of measurement, source of information, and concept of entrepreneurship that is applicable and available among the diverse sample of participating economies.


IndicatorName: Depth of credit information index (0=low to 8=high)

Longdefinition: Depth of credit information index measures rules affecting the scope, accessibility, and quality of credit information available through public or private credit registries. The index ranges from 0 to 8, with higher values indicating the availability of more credit information, from either a public registry or a private bureau, to facilitate lending decisions.


Generalcomments: Data are presented for the survey year instead of publication year.

IndicatorName: Private credit bureau coverage (% of adults)

Longdefinition: Private credit bureau coverage reports the number of individuals or firms listed by a private credit bureau with current information on repayment history, unpaid debts, or credit outstanding. The number is expressed as a percentage of the adult population.


IndicatorName: Public credit registry coverage (% of adults)

Longdefinition: Public credit registry coverage reports the number of individuals and firms listed in a public credit registry with current information on repayment history, unpaid debts, or credit outstanding. The number is expressed as a percentage of the adult population.


IndicatorName: Informal payments to public officials (% of firms)

Limitationsandexceptions:
The sampling methodology for Enterprise Surveys is stratified random sampling. In a simple random sample, all members of the population have the same probability of being selected and no weighting of the observations is necessary. In a stratified random sample, all population units are grouped within homogeneous groups and simple random samples are selected within each group. This method allows computing estimates for each of the strata with a specified level of precision while population estimates can also be estimated by properly weighting individual observations. The sampling weights take care of the varying probabilities of selection across different strata. Under certain conditions, estimates' precision under stratified random sampling will be higher than under simple random sampling (lower standard errors may result from the estimation procedure).

The strata for Enterprise Surveys are firm size, business sector, and geographic region within a country. Firm size levels are 5-19 (small), 20-99 (medium), and 100+ employees (large-sized firms). Since in most economies, the majority of firms are small and medium-sized, Enterprise Surveys oversample large firms since larger firms tend to be engines of job creation. Sector breakdown is usually manufacturing, retail, and other services. For larger economies, specific manufacturing sub-sectors are selected as additional strata on the basis of employment, value-added, and total number of establishments figures. Geographic regions within a country are selected based on which cities/regions collectively contain the majority of economic activity.

Ideally the survey sample frame is derived from the universe of eligible firms obtained from the country’s statistical office. Sometimes the master list of firms is obtained from other government agencies such as tax or business licensing authorities. In some cases, the list of firms is obtained from business associations or marketing databases. In a few cases, the sample frame is created via block enumeration, where the World Bank “manually” constructs a list of eligible firms after 1) partitioning a country’s cities of major economic activity into clusters and blocks, 2) randomly selecting a subset of blocks which will then be enumerated. In surveys conducted since 2005-06, survey documentation which explains the source of the sample frame and any special circumstances encountered during survey fieldwork are included with the collected datasets.

Obtaining panel data, i.e. interviews with the same firms across multiple years, is a priority in current Enterprise Surveys. When conducting a new Enterprise Survey in a country where data was previously collected, maximal effort is expended to re-interview as many firms (from the prior survey) as possible. For these panel firms, sampling weights can be adjusted to take into account the resulting altered probabilities of inclusion in the sample frame.

Longdefinition: Informal payments to public officials are the percentage of firms expected to make informal payments to public officials to "get things done" with regard to customs, taxes, licenses, regulations, services, and the like.

Notesfromoriginalsource: All surveys were administered using the Enterprise Surveys methodology as outlined in the Methodology page which can be found from www.enterprisesurveys.org.

Source: World Bank, Enterprise Surveys (http://www.enterprisesurveys.org/).


IndicatorName: Time required to obtain an operating license (days)

Longdefinition: Time required to obtain operating license is the average wait to obtain an operating license from the day the establishment applied for it to the day it was granted.


IndicatorName: Time to resolve insolvency (years)

Longdefinition: Time to resolve insolvency is the number of years from the filing for insolvency in court until the resolution of distressed assets.


IndicatorName: Time required to enforce a contract (days)

Longdefinition: Time required to enforce a contract is the number of calendar days from the filing of the lawsuit in court until the final determination and, in appropriate cases, payment.


IndicatorName: Time required to register property (days)

Longdefinition: Time required to register property is the number of calendar days needed for businesses to secure rights to property.


IndicatorName: Time required to start a business (days)

Longdefinition: Time required to start a business is the number of calendar days needed to complete the procedures to legally operate a business. If a procedure can be speeded up at additional cost, the fastest procedure, independent of cost, is chosen.


IndicatorName: Time to prepare and pay taxes (hours)

Limitationsandexceptions:
To make the data comparable across countries, several assumptions are made about businesses. The main assumptions are that they are limited liability companies, they operate in the country's most populous city, they are domestically owned, they perform general industrial or commercial activities, and they have certain levels of start-up capital, employees, and turnover.

The Doing Business methodology on business taxes is consistent with the Total Tax Contribution framework developed by PricewaterhouseCoopers (now PwC), which measures the taxes that are borne by companies and that affect their income statements. However, PwC bases its calculation on data from the largest companies in the economy, while Doing Business focuses on a standardized medium-size company.

Longdefinition: Time to prepare and pay taxes is the time, in hours per year, it takes to prepare, file, and pay (or withhold) three major types of taxes: the corporate income tax, the value added or sales tax, and labor taxes, including payroll taxes and social security contributions.


IndicatorName: Number of visits or required meetings with tax officials (average for affected firms)

Longdefinition: Average number of visits or required meetings with tax officials during the year. The value represents the average number of visits for all firms which reported being visited or required to meet with tax officials (please see indicator IC.FRM.METG.ZS).


IndicatorName: Tax payments (number)

Longdefinition: Tax payments by businesses are the total number of taxes paid by businesses, including electronic filing. The tax is counted as paid once a year even if payments are more frequent.


IndicatorName: CPIA economic management cluster average (1=low to 6=high)

Limitationsandexceptions: The CPIA exercise is intended to capture the quality of a country's policies and institutional arrangements, focusing on key elements that are within the country's control, rather than on outcomes (such as economic growth rates) that are influenced by events beyond the country's control. More specifically, the CPIA measures the extent to which a country's policy and institutional framework supports sustainable growth and poverty reduction and, consequently, the effective use of development assistance.

Longdefinition: The economic management cluster includes macroeconomic management, fiscal policy, and debt policy.

Source: World Bank Group, CPIA database (http://www.worldbank.org/ida).

Topic: Public Sector: Policy & institutions


IndicatorName: CPIA financial sector rating (1=low to 6=high)

Longdefinition: Financial sector assesses the structure of the financial sector and the policies and regulations that affect it.


IndicatorName: CPIA gender equality rating (1=low to 6=high)

Longdefinition: Gender equality assesses the extent to which the country has installed institutions and programs to enforce laws and policies that promote equal access for men and women in education, health, the economy, and protection under law.


IndicatorName: CPIA macroeconomic management rating (1=low to 6=high)

Longdefinition: Macroeconomic management assesses the monetary, exchange rate, and aggregate demand policy framework.


IndicatorName: CPIA property rights and rule-based governance rating (1=low to 6=high)

Longdefinition: Property rights and rule-based governance assess the extent to which private economic activity is facilitated by an effective legal system and rule-based governance structure in which property and contract rights are reliably respected and enforced.


IndicatorName: CPIA social protection rating (1=low to 6=high)

Longdefinition: Social protection and labor assess government policies in social protection and labor market regulations that reduce the risk of becoming poor, assist those who are poor to better manage further risks, and ensure a minimal level of welfare to all people.


IndicatorName: CPIA policies for social inclusion/equity cluster average (1=low to 6=high)

Longdefinition: The policies for social inclusion and equity cluster includes gender equality, equity of public resource use, building human resources, social protection and labor, and policies and institutions for environmental sustainability.


IndicatorName: Air transport, registered carrier departures worldwide

Limitationsandexceptions:
Countries submit air transport data to Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on the basis of standard instructions and definitions issued by ICAO. In many cases, however, the data include estimates by ICAO for nonreporting carriers. Where possible, these estimates are based on previous submissions supplemented by information published by the air carriers, such as flight schedules.

The data cover the air traffic carried on scheduled services, but changes in air transport regulations in Europe have made it more difficult to classify traffic as scheduled or nonscheduled. Thus recent increases shown for some European countries may be due to changes in the classification of air traffic rather than actual growth. In the case of multinational air carriers owned by partner States, traffic within each partner State is shown separately as domestic and all other traffic as international.

"Foreign" cabotage traffic (i.e. traffic carried between city-pairs in a State other than the one where the reporting carrier has its principal place of business) is shown as international traffic.

A technical stop does not result in any flight stage being classified differently than would have been the case had the technical stop not been made. For countries with few air carriers or only one, the addition or discontinuation of a home-based air carrier may cause significant changes in air traffic.

Data for transport sectors are not always internationally comparable. Unlike for demographic statistics, national income accounts, and international trade data, the collection of infrastructure data has not been "internationalized."

Longdefinition: Registered carrier departures worldwide are domestic takeoffs and takeoffs abroad of air carriers registered in the country.

Source: International Civil Aviation Organization, Civil Aviation Statistics of the World and ICAO staff estimates.

Topic: Infrastructure: Transportation


Generalcomments: Please cite the International Telecommunication Union for third-party use of these data.

IndicatorName: Mobile cellular subscriptions (per 100 people)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Operators have traditionally been the main source of telecommunications data, so information on subscriptions has been widely available for most countries. This gives a general idea of access, but a more precise measure is the penetration rate - the share of households with access to telecommunications. During the past few years more information on information and communication technology use has become available from household and business surveys. Also important are data on actual use of telecommunications services. Ideally, statistics on telecommunications (and other information and communications technologies) should be compiled for all three measures: subscriptions, access, and use. The quality of data varies among reporting countries as a result of differences in regulations covering data provision and availability.

Discrepancies between global and national figures may arise when countries use a different definition than the one used by ITU. For example, some countries do not include the number of ISDN channels when calculating the number of fixed telephone lines. Discrepancies may also arise in cases where the end of a fiscal year differs from that used by ITU, which is the end of December of every year. A number of countries have fiscal years that end in March or June of every year. Data are usually not adjusted but discrepancies in the definition, reference year or the break in comparability in between years are noted in a data note. For this reason, data are not always strictly comparable. Missing values are estimated by ITU.

Mobile subscriptions include both analogue and digital cellular systems (IMT-2000 (Third Generation, 3G) and 4G subscriptions, but excludes mobile broadband subscriptions via data cards or USB modems. Subscriptions to public mobile data services, private trunked mobile radio, telepoint or radio paging, and telemetry services are also excluded, but all mobile cellular subscriptions that offer voice communications are included. Both postpaid and prepaid subscriptions are included.

Longdefinition: Mobile cellular telephone subscriptions are subscriptions to a public mobile telephone service that provide access to the PSTN using cellular technology. The indicator includes (and is split into) the number of postpaid subscriptions, and the number of active prepaid accounts (i.e. that have been used during the last three months). The indicator applies to all mobile cellular subscriptions that offer voice communications. It excludes subscriptions via data cards or USB modems, subscriptions to public mobile data services, private trunked mobile radio, telepoint, radio paging and telemetry services.

Source: International Telecommunication Union, World Telecommunication/ICT Development Report and database.

Topic: Infrastructure: Communications


IndicatorName: Fixed telephone subscriptions (per 100 people)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Operators have traditionally been the main source of telecommunications data, so information on subscriptions has been widely available for most countries. This gives a general idea of access, but a more precise measure is the penetration rate - the share of households with access to telecommunications. During the past few years more information on information and communication technology use has become available from household and business surveys. Also important are data on actual use of telecommunications services. Ideally, statistics on telecommunications (and other information and communications technologies) should be compiled for all three measures: subscriptions, access, and use. The quality of data varies among reporting countries as a result of differences in regulations covering data provision and availability.

Discrepancies between global and national figures may arise when countries use a different definition than the one used by ITU. For example, some countries do not include the number of ISDN channels when calculating the number of fixed telephone lines. Discrepancies may also arise in cases where the end of a fiscal year differs from that used by ITU, which is the end of December of every year. A number of countries have fiscal years that end in March or June of every year. Data are usually not adjusted but discrepancies in the definition, reference year or the break in comparability in between years are noted in a data note. For this reason, data are not always strictly comparable. Missing values are estimated by ITU.

Longdefinition: Fixed telephone subscriptions refers to the sum of active number of analogue fixed telephone lines, voice-over-IP (VoIP) subscriptions, fixed wireless local loop (WLL) subscriptions, ISDN voice-channel equivalents and fixed public payphones.


IndicatorName: Fixed broadband subscriptions (per 100 people)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Data are collected by national statistics offices through household surveys. Because survey questions and definitions differ, the estimates may not be strictly comparable across countries.

Fixed broadband Internet includes cable modem, DSL, fibre and other fixed broadband technology (such as satellite broadband Internet, Ethernet LANs, fixed-wireless access, Wireless Local Area Network, WiMAX etc.). Subscribers with access to data communications (including the Internet) via mobile cellular networks are excluded.

Advertised and real speeds can differ substantially. In some countries, regulatory authorities monitor the speed and quality of broadband services and oblige operators to provide accurate quality-of-service information to end users. Regional and global totals are calculated as unweighted sums of the country values. Regional and global penetration rates (per 100 inhabitants) are weighted averages of the country values weighted by the population of the countries/regions.

Discrepancies between global and national figures may arise when countries use a different definition than the one used by ITU. Discrepancies may also arise in cases where the end of a fiscal year differs from that used by ITU, which is end of December of every year. A number of countries have fiscal years that end in March or June of every year.

Longdefinition: Fixed broadband subscriptions refers to fixed subscriptions to high-speed access to the public Internet (a TCP/IP connection), at downstream speeds equal to, or greater than, 256 kbit/s. This includes cable modem, DSL, fiber-to-the-home/building, other fixed (wired)-broadband subscriptions, satellite broadband and terrestrial fixed wireless broadband. This total is measured irrespective of the method of payment. It excludes subscriptions that have access to data communications (including the Internet) via mobile-cellular networks. It should include fixed WiMAX and any other fixed wireless technologies. It includes both residential subscriptions and subscriptions for organizations.


IndicatorName: Individuals using the Internet (% of population)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Operators have traditionally been the main source of telecommunications data, so information on subscriptions has been widely available for most countries. This gives a general idea of access, but a more precise measure is the penetration rate - the share of households with access to telecommunications. During the past few years more information on information and communication technology use has become available from household and business surveys. Also important are data on actual use of telecommunications services. Ideally, statistics on telecommunications (and other information and communications technologies) should be compiled for all three measures: subscriptions, access, and use. The quality of data varies among reporting countries as a result of differences in regulations covering data provision and availability.

Discrepancies may also arise in cases where the end of a fiscal year differs from that used by ITU, which is the end of December of every year. A number of countries have fiscal years that end in March or June of every year.

Longdefinition: Internet users are individuals who have used the Internet (from any location) in the last 3 months. The Internet can be used via a computer, mobile phone, personal digital assistant, games machine, digital TV etc.


IndicatorName: Exports of goods and services (annual % growth)

Longdefinition: Annual growth rate of exports of goods and services based on constant local currency. Aggregates are based on constant 2010 U.S. dollars. Exports of goods and services represent the value of all goods and other market services provided to the rest of the world. They include the value of merchandise, freight, insurance, transport, travel, royalties, license fees, and other services, such as communication, construction, financial, information, business, personal, and government services. They exclude compensation of employees and investment income (formerly called factor services) and transfer payments.

Source: World Bank national accounts data, and OECD National Accounts data files.

Topic: Economic Policy & Debt: National accounts: Growth rates


IndicatorName: Exports of goods and services (% of GDP)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Because policymakers have tended to focus on fostering the growth of output, and because data on production are easier to collect than data on spending, many countries generate their primary estimate of GDP using the production approach. Moreover, many countries do not estimate all the components of national expenditures but instead derive some of the main aggregates indirectly using GDP (based on the production approach) as the control total.

Data on exports and imports are compiled from customs reports and balance of payments data. Although the data from the payments side provide reasonably reliable records of cross-border transactions, they may not adhere strictly to the appropriate definitions of valuation and timing used in the balance of payments or corresponds to the change-of ownership criterion. This issue has assumed greater significance with the increasing globalization of international business. Neither customs nor balance of payments data usually capture the illegal transactions that occur in many countries. Goods carried by travelers across borders in legal but unreported shuttle trade may further distort trade statistics.

Longdefinition: Exports of goods and services represent the value of all goods and other market services provided to the rest of the world. They include the value of merchandise, freight, insurance, transport, travel, royalties, license fees, and other services, such as communication, construction, financial, information, business, personal, and government services. They exclude compensation of employees and investment income (formerly called factor services) and transfer payments.

Topic: Economic Policy & Debt: National accounts: Shares of GDP & other


IndicatorName: Gross fixed capital formation, private sector (% of GDP)

Longdefinition: Private investment covers gross outlays by the private sector (including private nonprofit agencies) on additions to its fixed domestic assets.


IndicatorName: Gross capital formation (annual % growth)

Longdefinition: Annual growth rate of gross capital formation based on constant local currency. Aggregates are based on constant 2010 U.S. dollars. Gross capital formation (formerly gross domestic investment) consists of outlays on additions to the fixed assets of the economy plus net changes in the level of inventories. Fixed assets include land improvements (fences, ditches, drains, and so on); plant, machinery, and equipment purchases; and the construction of roads, railways, and the like, including schools, offices, hospitals, private residential dwellings, and commercial and industrial buildings. Inventories are stocks of goods held by firms to meet temporary or unexpected fluctuations in production or sales, and "work in progress." According to the 1993 SNA, net acquisitions of valuables are also considered capital formation.


IndicatorName: Gross capital formation (% of GDP)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Because policymakers have tended to focus on fostering the growth of output, and because data on production are easier to collect than data on spending, many countries generate their primary estimate of GDP using the production approach. Moreover, many countries do not estimate all the components of national expenditures but instead derive some of the main aggregates indirectly using GDP (based on the production approach) as the control total.

Data on capital formation may be estimated from direct surveys of enterprises and administrative records or based on the commodity flow method using data from production, trade, and construction activities. The quality of data on government fixed capital formation depends on the quality of government accounting systems (which tend to be weak in developing countries). Measures of fixed capital formation by households and corporations - particularly capital outlays by small, unincorporated enterprises - are usually unreliable.

Estimates of changes in inventories are rarely complete but usually include the most important activities or commodities. In some countries these estimates are derived as a composite residual along with household final consumption expenditure. According to national accounts conventions, adjustments should be made for appreciation of the value of inventory holdings due to price changes, but this is not always done. In highly inflationary economies this element can be substantial.

Longdefinition: Gross capital formation (formerly gross domestic investment) consists of outlays on additions to the fixed assets of the economy plus net changes in the level of inventories. Fixed assets include land improvements (fences, ditches, drains, and so on); plant, machinery, and equipment purchases; and the construction of roads, railways, and the like, including schools, offices, hospitals, private residential dwellings, and commercial and industrial buildings. Inventories are stocks of goods held by firms to meet temporary or unexpected fluctuations in production or sales, and "work in progress." According to the 1993 SNA, net acquisitions of valuables are also considered capital formation.


IndicatorName: Imports of goods and services (% of GDP)

Longdefinition: Imports of goods and services represent the value of all goods and other market services received from the rest of the world. They include the value of merchandise, freight, insurance, transport, travel, royalties, license fees, and other services, such as communication, construction, financial, information, business, personal, and government services. They exclude compensation of employees and investment income (formerly called factor services) and transfer payments.


Aggregationmethod: Gap-filled total

Generalcomments: Note: Data for OECD countries are based on ISIC, revision 4.

IndicatorName: Agriculture, value added (constant 2010 US$)

Limitationsandexceptions: Among the difficulties faced by compilers of national accounts is the extent of unreported economic activity in the informal or secondary economy. In developing countries a large share of agricultural output is either not exchanged (because it is consumed within the household) or not exchanged for money. Agricultural production often must be estimated indirectly, using a combination of methods involving estimates of inputs, yields, and area under cultivation. This approach sometimes leads to crude approximations that can differ from the true values over time and across crops for reasons other than climate conditions or farming techniques. Similarly, agricultural inputs that cannot easily be allocated to specific outputs are frequently "netted out" using equally crude and ad hoc approximations.

Longdefinition: Agriculture corresponds to ISIC divisions 1-5 and includes forestry, hunting, and fishing, as well as cultivation of crops and livestock production. Value added is the net output of a sector after adding up all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or depletion and degradation of natural resources. The origin of value added is determined by the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), revision 3 or 4. Data are in constant 2010 U.S. dollars.

Topic: Economic Policy & Debt: National accounts: US$ at constant 2010 prices: Value added


IndicatorName: Agriculture, value added (annual % growth)

Longdefinition: Annual growth rate for agricultural value added based on constant local currency. Aggregates are based on constant 2010 U.S. dollars. Agriculture corresponds to ISIC divisions 1-5 and includes forestry, hunting, and fishing, as well as cultivation of crops and livestock production. Value added is the net output of a sector after adding up all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or depletion and degradation of natural resources. The origin of value added is determined by the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), revision 3 or 4.


IndicatorName: Agriculture, value added (% of GDP)

Longdefinition: Agriculture corresponds to ISIC divisions 1-5 and includes forestry, hunting, and fishing, as well as cultivation of crops and livestock production. Value added is the net output of a sector after adding up all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or depletion and degradation of natural resources. The origin of value added is determined by the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), revision 3 or 4.


IndicatorName: Manufacturing, value added (constant 2010 US$)

Limitationsandexceptions: Ideally, industrial output should be measured through regular censuses and surveys of firms. But in most developing countries such surveys are infrequent, so earlier survey results must be extrapolated using an appropriate indicator. The choice of sampling unit, which may be the enterprise (where responses may be based on financial records) or the establishment (where production units may be recorded separately), also affects the quality of the data. Moreover, much industrial production is organized in unincorporated or owner-operated ventures that are not captured by surveys aimed at the formal sector. Even in large industries, where regular surveys are more likely, evasion of excise and other taxes and nondisclosure of income lower the estimates of value added. Such problems become more acute as countries move from state control of industry to private enterprise, because new firms and growing numbers of established firms fail to report. In accordance with the System of National Accounts, output should include all such unreported activity as well as the value of illegal activities and other unrecorded, informal, or small-scale operations. Data on these activities need to be collected using techniques other than conventional surveys of firms.

Longdefinition: Manufacturing refers to industries belonging to ISIC divisions 15-37. Value added is the net output of a sector after adding up all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or depletion and degradation of natural resources. The origin of value added is determined by the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), revision 3. Data are expressed constant 2010 U.S. dollars.


IndicatorName: Manufacturing, value added (annual % growth)

Longdefinition: Annual growth rate for manufacturing value added based on constant local currency. Aggregates are based on constant 2010 U.S. dollars. Manufacturing refers to industries belonging to ISIC divisions 15-37. Value added is the net output of a sector after adding up all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or depletion and degradation of natural resources. The origin of value added is determined by the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), revision 3.


IndicatorName: Manufacturing, value added (% of GDP)

Longdefinition: Manufacturing refers to industries belonging to ISIC divisions 15-37. Value added is the net output of a sector after adding up all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or depletion and degradation of natural resources. The origin of value added is determined by the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), revision 3. Note: For VAB countries, gross value added at factor cost is used as the denominator.


IndicatorName: Industry, value added (constant 2010 US$)

Longdefinition: Industry corresponds to ISIC divisions 10-45 and includes manufacturing (ISIC divisions 15-37). It comprises value added in mining, manufacturing (also reported as a separate subgroup), construction, electricity, water, and gas. Value added is the net output of a sector after adding up all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or depletion and degradation of natural resources. The origin of value added is determined by the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), revision 3. Data are in constant 2010 U.S. dollars.


IndicatorName: Industry, value added (annual % growth)

Longdefinition: Annual growth rate for industrial value added based on constant local currency. Aggregates are based on constant 2010 U.S. dollars. Industry corresponds to ISIC divisions 10-45 and includes manufacturing (ISIC divisions 15-37). It comprises value added in mining, manufacturing (also reported as a separate subgroup), construction, electricity, water, and gas. Value added is the net output of a sector after adding up all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or depletion and degradation of natural resources. The origin of value added is determined by the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), revision 3.


IndicatorName: Industry, value added (% of GDP)

Longdefinition: Industry corresponds to ISIC divisions 10-45 and includes manufacturing (ISIC divisions 15-37). It comprises value added in mining, manufacturing (also reported as a separate subgroup), construction, electricity, water, and gas. Value added is the net output of a sector after adding up all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or depletion and degradation of natural resources. The origin of value added is determined by the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), revision 3 or 4.


IndicatorName: GDP growth (annual %)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Each industry's contribution to growth in the economy's output is measured by growth in the industry's value added. In principle, value added in constant prices can be estimated by measuring the quantity of goods and services produced in a period, valuing them at an agreed set of base year prices, and subtracting the cost of intermediate inputs, also in constant prices. This double-deflation method requires detailed information on the structure of prices of inputs and outputs.

In many industries, however, value added is extrapolated from the base year using single volume indexes of outputs or, less commonly, inputs. Particularly in the services industries, including most of government, value added in constant prices is often imputed from labor inputs, such as real wages or number of employees. In the absence of well defined measures of output, measuring the growth of services remains difficult.

Moreover, technical progress can lead to improvements in production processes and in the quality of goods and services that, if not properly accounted for, can distort measures of value added and thus of growth. When inputs are used to estimate output, as for nonmarket services, unmeasured technical progress leads to underestimates of the volume of output. Similarly, unmeasured improvements in quality lead to underestimates of the value of output and value added. The result can be underestimates of growth and productivity improvement and overestimates of inflation.

Informal economic activities pose a particular measurement problem, especially in developing countries, where much economic activity is unrecorded. A complete picture of the economy requires estimating household outputs produced for home use, sales in informal markets, barter exchanges, and illicit or deliberately unreported activities. The consistency and completeness of such estimates depend on the skill and methods of the compiling statisticians.

Rebasing of national accounts can alter the measured growth rate of an economy and lead to breaks in series that affect the consistency of data over time. When countries rebase their national accounts, they update the weights assigned to various components to better reflect current patterns of production or uses of output. The new base year should represent normal operation of the economy - it should be a year without major shocks or distortions. Some developing countries have not rebased their national accounts for many years. Using an old base year can be misleading because implicit price and volume weights become progressively less relevant and useful.

To obtain comparable series of constant price data for computing aggregates, the World Bank rescales GDP and value added by industrial origin to a common reference year. Because rescaling changes the implicit weights used in forming regional and income group aggregates, aggregate growth rates are not comparable with those from earlier editions with different base years. Rescaling may result in a discrepancy between the rescaled GDP and the sum of the rescaled components. To avoid distortions in the growth rates, the discrepancy is left unallocated. As a result, the weighted average of the growth rates of the components generally does not equal the GDP growth rate.

Longdefinition: Annual percentage growth rate of GDP at market prices based on constant local currency. Aggregates are based on constant 2010 U.S. dollars. GDP is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and degradation of natural resources.


IndicatorName: GDP per capita (constant 2010 US$)

Longdefinition: GDP per capita is gross domestic product divided by midyear population. GDP is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and degradation of natural resources. Data are in constant 2010 U.S. dollars.

Topic: Economic Policy & Debt: National accounts: US$ at constant 2010 prices: Aggregate indicators


IndicatorName: GDP per capita, PPP (constant 2011 international $)

Longdefinition: GDP per capita based on purchasing power parity (PPP). PPP GDP is gross domestic product converted to international dollars using purchasing power parity rates. An international dollar has the same purchasing power over GDP as the U.S. dollar has in the United States. GDP at purchaser's prices is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and degradation of natural resources. Data are in constant 2011 international dollars.

Source: World Bank, International Comparison Program database.

Topic: Economic Policy & Debt: Purchasing power parity


IndicatorName: Literacy rate, youth female (% of females ages 15-24)

Limitationsandexceptions: In practice, literacy is difficult to measure. Estimating literacy rates requires census or survey measurements under controlled conditions. Many countries report the number of literate people from self-reported data. Some use educational attainment data as a proxy but apply different lengths of school attendance or levels of completion. Ant there is a trend among recent national and international surveys toward using a direct reading test of literacy skills. Because definitions and methods of data collection differ across countries, data should be used cautiously.

Longdefinition: Youth literacy rate is the percentage of people ages 15-24 who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement about their everyday life.

Topic: Education: Outcomes


IndicatorName: Literacy rate, youth male (% of males ages 15-24)


IndicatorName: Literacy rate, youth total (% of people ages 15-24)


IndicatorName: Literacy rate, adult female (% of females ages 15 and above)

Longdefinition: Adult literacy rate is the percentage of people ages 15 and above who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement about their everyday life.


IndicatorName: Literacy rate, adult male (% of males ages 15 and above)


IndicatorName: Literacy rate, adult total (% of people ages 15 and above)


IndicatorName: School enrollment, secondary (gross), gender parity index (GPI)

Longdefinition: Gender parity index for gross enrollment ratio in secondary education is the ratio of girls to boys enrolled at secondary level in public and private schools.

Topic: Education: Participation


IndicatorName: School enrollment, tertiary (gross), gender parity index (GPI)

Longdefinition: Gender parity index for gross enrollment ratio in tertiary education is the ratio of women to men enrolled at tertiary level in public and private schools.


IndicatorName: Primary completion rate, female (% of relevant age group)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Data limitations preclude adjusting for students who drop out during the final year of primary education. Thus this rate is a proxy that should be taken as an upper estimate of the actual primary completion rate.

There are many reasons why the primary completion rate can exceed 100 percent. The numerator may include late entrants and overage children who have repeated one or more grades of primary education as well as children who entered school early, while the denominator is the number of children at the entrance age for the last grade of primary education.

Longdefinition: Primary completion rate, or gross intake ratio to the last grade of primary education, is the number of new entrants (enrollments minus repeaters) in the last grade of primary education, regardless of age, divided by the population at the entrance age for the last grade of primary education. Data limitations preclude adjusting for students who drop out during the final year of primary education.


IndicatorName: Primary completion rate, male (% of relevant age group)


IndicatorName: Primary completion rate, total (% of relevant age group)


IndicatorName: School enrollment, primary (% gross)

Limitationsandexceptions: Enrollment indicators are based on annual school surveys, but do not necessarily reflect actual attendance or dropout rates during the year. Also, the length of education differs across countries and can influence enrollment rates, although the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) tries to minimize the difference. For example, a shorter duration for primary education tends to increase the rate; a longer one to decrease it (in part because older children are more at risk of dropping out). Moreover, age at enrollment may be inaccurately estimated or misstated, especially in communities where registration of births is not strictly enforced.

Longdefinition: Gross enrollment ratio is the ratio of total enrollment, regardless of age, to the population of the age group that officially corresponds to the level of education shown. Primary education provides children with basic reading, writing, and mathematics skills along with an elementary understanding of such subjects as history, geography, natural science, social science, art, and music.


IndicatorName: School enrollment, primary, female (% gross)


IndicatorName: School enrollment, primary, male (% gross)


IndicatorName: School enrollment, secondary (% gross)

Longdefinition: Gross enrollment ratio is the ratio of total enrollment, regardless of age, to the population of the age group that officially corresponds to the level of education shown. Secondary education completes the provision of basic education that began at the primary level, and aims at laying the foundations for lifelong learning and human development, by offering more subject- or skill-oriented instruction using more specialized teachers.


IndicatorName: School enrollment, secondary, female (% gross)


IndicatorName: School enrollment, secondary, male (% gross)


IndicatorName: School enrollment, tertiary (% gross)

Longdefinition: Gross enrollment ratio is the ratio of total enrollment, regardless of age, to the population of the age group that officially corresponds to the level of education shown. Tertiary education, whether or not to an advanced research qualification, normally requires, as a minimum condition of admission, the successful completion of education at the secondary level.


IndicatorName: School enrollment, tertiary, female (% gross)


IndicatorName: School enrollment, tertiary, male (% gross)


IndicatorName: Government expenditure on education, total (% of GDP)

Limitationsandexceptions: Data may refer to spending by the ministry of education only (excluding spending on educational activities by other ministries).

Longdefinition: General government expenditure on education (current, capital, and transfers) is expressed as a percentage of GDP. It includes expenditure funded by transfers from international sources to government. General government usually refers to local, regional and central governments.

Source: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics.

Topic: Education: Inputs


IndicatorName: Prevalence of HIV, total (% of population ages 15-49)

Limitationsandexceptions: The limited availability of data on health status is a major constraint in assessing the health situation in developing countries. Surveillance data are lacking for many major public health concerns. Estimates of prevalence and incidence are available for some diseases but are often unreliable and incomplete. National health authorities differ widely in capacity and willingness to collect or report information.

Longdefinition: Prevalence of HIV refers to the percentage of people ages 15-49 who are infected with HIV.

Source: UNAIDS estimates.

Topic: Health: Risk factors


IndicatorName: Lifetime risk of maternal death (%)

Limitationsandexceptions: The methodology differs from that used for previous estimates, so data should not be compared historically. Maternal mortality ratios are generally of unknown reliability, as are many other cause-specific mortality indicators. The probability cannot be assumed to provide an exact estimate of risk of maternal death.

Longdefinition: Life time risk of maternal death is the probability that a 15-year-old female will die eventually from a maternal cause assuming that current levels of fertility and mortality (including maternal mortality) do not change in the future, taking into account competing causes of death.

Source: WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group, and the United Nations Population Division. Trends in Maternal Mortality: 1990 to 2015. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2015

Topic: Health: Reproductive health


Generalcomments: The World Bank’s internationally comparable poverty monitoring database now draws on income or detailed consumption data from more than one thousand six hundred household surveys across 164 countries in six regions and 25 other high income countries (industrialized economies). While income distribution data are published for all countries with data available, poverty data are published for low- and middle-income countries and countries eligible to receive loans from the World Bank (such as Chile) and recently graduated countries (such as Estonia) only. The aggregated numbers for low- and middle-income countries correspond to the totals of 6 regions in PovcalNet, which include low- and middle-income countries and countries eligible to receive loans from the World Bank (such as Chile) and recently graduated countries (such as Estonia). See PovcalNet (http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/WhatIsNew.aspx) for definitions of geographical regions and industrialized countries.

IndicatorName: Poverty headcount ratio at $1.90 a day (2011 PPP) (% of population)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Despite progress in the last decade, the challenges of measuring poverty remain. The timeliness, frequency, quality, and comparability of household surveys need to increase substantially, particularly in the poorest countries. The availability and quality of poverty monitoring data remains low in small states, countries with fragile situations, and low-income countries and even some middle-income countries. The low frequency and lack of comparability of the data available in some countries create uncertainty over the magnitude of poverty reduction.

Besides the frequency and timeliness of survey data, other data quality issues arise in measuring household living standards. The surveys ask detailed questions on sources of income and how it was spent, which must be carefully recorded by trained personnel. Income is generally more difficult to measure accurately, and consumption comes closer to the notion of living standards. And income can vary over time even if living standards do not. But consumption data are not always available: the latest estimates reported here use consumption data for about two-thirds of countries.

However, even similar surveys may not be strictly comparable because of differences in timing or in the quality and training of enumerators. Comparisons of countries at different levels of development also pose a potential problem because of differences in the relative importance of the consumption of nonmarket goods. The local market value of all consumption in kind (including own production, particularly important in underdeveloped rural economies) should be included in total consumption expenditure but may not be. Most survey data now include valuations for consumption or income from own production, but valuation methods vary.

Longdefinition: Poverty headcount ratio at $1.90 a day is the percentage of the population living on less than $1.90 a day at 2011 international prices. As a result of revisions in PPP exchange rates, poverty rates for individual countries cannot be compared with poverty rates reported in earlier editions.

Source: World Bank, Development Research Group. Data are based on primary household survey data obtained from government statistical agencies and World Bank country departments. Data for high-income economies are from the Luxembourg Income Study database. For more information and methodology, please see PovcalNet (http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/index.htm).

Topic: Poverty: Poverty rates


Generalcomments: The World Bank’s internationally comparable poverty monitoring database now draws on income or detailed consumption data from more than one thousand six hundred household surveys across 164 countries in six regions and 25 other high income countries (industrialized economies). While income distribution data are published for all countries with data available, poverty data are published for low- and middle-income countries and countries eligible to receive loans from the World Bank (such as Chile) and recently graduated countries (such as Estonia) only. See PovcalNet (http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/WhatIsNew.aspx) for definitions of geographical regions and industrialized countries.

IndicatorName: GINI index (World Bank estimate)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Gini coefficients are not unique. It is possible for two different Lorenz curves to give rise to the same Gini coefficient. Furthermore it is possible for the Gini coefficient of a developing country to rise (due to increasing inequality of income) while the number of people in absolute poverty decreases. This is because the Gini coefficient measures relative, not absolute, wealth.

Another limitation of the Gini coefficient is that it is not additive across groups, i.e. the total Gini of a society is not equal to the sum of the Gini's for its sub-groups. Thus, country-level Gini coefficients cannot be aggregated into regional or global Gini's, although a Gini coefficient can be computed for the aggregate.

Because the underlying household surveys differ in methods and types of welfare measures collected, data are not strictly comparable across countries or even across years within a country. Two sources of non-comparability should be noted for distributions of income in particular. First, the surveys can differ in many respects, including whether they use income or consumption expenditure as the living standard indicator. The distribution of income is typically more unequal than the distribution of consumption. In addition, the definitions of income used differ more often among surveys. Consumption is usually a much better welfare indicator, particularly in developing countries. Second, households differ in size (number of members) and in the extent of income sharing among members. And individuals differ in age and consumption needs. Differences among countries in these respects may bias comparisons of distribution.

World Bank staff have made an effort to ensure that the data are as comparable as possible. Wherever possible, consumption has been used rather than income. Income distribution and Gini indexes for high-income economies are calculated directly from the Luxembourg Income Study database, using an estimation method consistent with that applied for developing countries.

Longdefinition: Gini index measures the extent to which the distribution of income (or, in some cases, consumption expenditure) among individuals or households within an economy deviates from a perfectly equal distribution. A Lorenz curve plots the cumulative percentages of total income received against the cumulative number of recipients, starting with the poorest individual or household. The Gini index measures the area between the Lorenz curve and a hypothetical line of absolute equality, expressed as a percentage of the maximum area under the line. Thus a Gini index of 0 represents perfect equality, while an index of 100 implies perfect inequality.

Source: World Bank, Development Research Group. Data are based on primary household survey data obtained from government statistical agencies and World Bank country departments. For more information and methodology, please see PovcalNet (http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/index.htm).

Topic: Poverty: Income distribution


Generalcomments: Data up to 2016 are estimates while data from 2017 are projections.

IndicatorName: Employment in agriculture, female (% of female employment) (modeled ILO estimate)

Limitationsandexceptions:
There are many differences in how countries define and measure employment status, particularly members of the armed forces, self-employed workers, and unpaid family workers. Where members of the armed forces are included, they are allocated to the service sector, causing that sector to be somewhat overstated relative to the service sector in economies where they are excluded. Where data are obtained from establishment surveys, data cover only employees; thus self-employed and unpaid family workers are excluded. In such cases the employment share of the agricultural sector is severely underreported. Caution should be also used where the data refer only to urban areas, which record little or no agricultural work. Moreover, the age group and area covered could differ by country or change over time within a country. For detailed information, consult the original source.

Countries also take different approaches to the treatment of unemployed people. In most countries unemployed people with previous job experience are classified according to their last job. But in some countries the unemployed and people seeking their first job are not classifiable by economic activity. Because of these differences, the size and distribution of employment by economic activity may not be fully comparable across countries.

The ILO reports data by major divisions of the ISIC revision 2, revision 3, or revision 4. Broad classification such as employment by agriculture, industry, and services may obscure fundamental shifts within countries' industrial patterns. A slight majority of countries report economic activity according to the ISIC revision 3 instead of revision 2 or revision 4. The use of one classification or the other should not have a significant impact on the information for the employment of the three broad sectorsdata.

Longdefinition: Employment is defined as persons of working age who were engaged in any activity to produce goods or provide services for pay or profit, whether at work during the reference period or not at work due to temporary absence from a job, or to working-time arrangement. The agriculture sector consists of activities in agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing, in accordance with division 1 (ISIC 2) or categories A-B (ISIC 3) or category A (ISIC 4).

Source: International Labour Organization, ILOSTAT database. Data retrieved in September 2018.

Topic: Social Protection & Labor: Economic activity


IndicatorName: Employment in agriculture, male (% of male employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Employment in agriculture (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Employers, female (% of female employment) (modeled ILO estimate)

Limitationsandexceptions: Data are drawn from labor force surveys and household surveys, supplemented by official estimates and censuses for a small group of countries. Due to differences in definitions and coverage across countries, there are limitations for comparing data across countries and over time even within a country. Estimates of women in employment are not comparable internationally, reflecting that demographic, social, legal, and cultural trends and norms determine whether women's activities are regarded as economic.

Longdefinition: Employers are those workers who, working on their own account or with one or a few partners, hold the type of jobs defined as a "self-employment jobs" i.e. jobs where the remuneration is directly dependent upon the profits derived from the goods and services produced), and, in this capacity, have engaged, on a continuous basis, one or more persons to work for them as employee(s).


IndicatorName: Employers, male (% of male employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Employers, total (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Own-account workers, female (% of female employment) (modeled ILO estimate)

Longdefinition: Own-account workers are workers who, working on their own account or with one or more more partners, hold the types of jobs defined as "self-employment jobs" and have not engaged on a continuous basis any employees to work for them. Own account workers are a subcategory of "self-employed".


IndicatorName: Own-account workers, male (% of male employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Own-account workers, total (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Self-employed, female (% of female employment) (modeled ILO estimate)

Longdefinition: Self-employed workers are those workers who, working on their own account or with one or a few partners or in cooperative, hold the type of jobs defined as a "self-employment jobs." i.e. jobs where the remuneration is directly dependent upon the profits derived from the goods and services produced. Self-employed workers include four sub-categories of employers, own-account workers, members of producers' cooperatives, and contributing family workers.


IndicatorName: Self-employed, male (% of male employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Self-employed, total (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Total employment, total (ages 15+)

Longdefinition: Total employment shows the total number employed ages 15 and over.

Source: International Labour Organization, ILOSTAT database, using World Bank population estimates. Labor data retrieved in March 2017.


IndicatorName: Vulnerable employment, female (% of female employment) (modeled ILO estimate)

Longdefinition: Vulnerable employment is contributing family workers and own-account workers as a percentage of total employment.

Source: Derived using data from International Labour Organization, ILOSTAT database. Data retrieved in September 2018.


IndicatorName: Vulnerable employment, male (% of male employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Vulnerable employment, total (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Wage and salaried workers, female (% of female employment) (modeled ILO estimate)

Longdefinition: Wage and salaried workers (employees) are those workers who hold the type of jobs defined as "paid employment jobs," where the incumbents hold explicit (written or oral) or implicit employment contracts that give them a basic remuneration that is not directly dependent upon the revenue of the unit for which they work.


IndicatorName: Wage and salaried workers, male (% of male employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Wage and salaried workers, total (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Contributing family workers, female (% of female employment) (modeled ILO estimate)

Longdefinition: Contributing family workers are those workers who hold "self-employment jobs" as own-account workers in a market-oriented establishment operated by a related person living in the same household.


IndicatorName: Contributing family workers, male (% of male employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Contributing family workers, total (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: GDP per person employed (constant 2011 PPP $)

Limitationsandexceptions: For comparability of individual sectors labor productivity is estimated according to national accounts conventions. However, there are still significant limitations on the availability of reliable data. Information on consistent series of output in both national currencies and purchasing power parity dollars is not easily available, especially in developing countries, because the definition, coverage, and methodology are not always consistent across countries. For example, countries employ different methodologies for estimating the missing values for the nonmarket service sectors and use different definitions of the informal sector.

Longdefinition: GDP per person employed is gross domestic product (GDP) divided by total employment in the economy. Purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP is GDP converted to 2011 constant international dollars using PPP rates. An international dollar has the same purchasing power over GDP that a U.S. dollar has in the United States.


IndicatorName: Employment in industry, female (% of female employment) (modeled ILO estimate)

Limitationsandexceptions:
There are many differences in how countries define and measure employment status, particularly members of the armed forces, self-employed workers, and unpaid family workers. Where members of the armed forces are included, they are allocated to the service sector, causing that sector to be somewhat overstated relative to the service sector in economies where they are excluded. Where data are obtained from establishment surveys, data cover only employees; thus self-employed and unpaid family workers are excluded. In such cases the employment share of the agricultural sector is severely underreported. Caution should be also used where the data refer only to urban areas, which record little or no agricultural work. Moreover, the age group and area covered could differ by country or change over time within a country. For detailed information, consult the original source.

Countries also take different approaches to the treatment of unemployed people. In most countries unemployed people with previous job experience are classified according to their last job. But in some countries the unemployed and people seeking their first job are not classifiable by economic activity. Because of these differences, the size and distribution of employment by economic activity may not be fully comparable across countries.

The ILO reports data by major divisions of the ISIC revision 2, revision 3, or revision 4. Broad classification such as employment by agriculture, industry, and services may obscure fundamental shifts within countries' industrial patterns. A slight majority of countries report economic activity according to the ISIC revision 3 instead of revision 2 or revision 4. The use of one classification or the other should not have a significant impact on the information for the employment of the three broad sectors data.

Longdefinition: Employment is defined as persons of working age who were engaged in any activity to produce goods or provide services for pay or profit, whether at work during the reference period or not at work due to temporary absence from a job, or to working-time arrangement. The industry sector consists of mining and quarrying, manufacturing, construction, and public utilities (electricity, gas, and water), in accordance with divisions 2-5 (ISIC 2) or categories C-F (ISIC 3) or categories B-F (ISIC 4).


IndicatorName: Employment in industry, male (% of male employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Employment in industry (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Employment in services, female (% of female employment) (modeled ILO estimate)

Limitationsandexceptions:
There are many differences in how countries define and measure employment status, particularly members of the armed forces, self-employed workers, and unpaid family workers. Where members of the armed forces are included, they are allocated to the service sector, causing that sector to be somewhat overstated relative to the service sector in economies where they are excluded. Where data are obtained from establishment surveys, data cover only employees; thus self-employed and unpaid family workers are excluded. In such cases the employment share of the agricultural sector is severely underreported. Caution should be also used where the data refer only to urban areas, which record little or no agricultural work. Moreover, the age group and area covered could differ by country or change over time within a country. For detailed information, consult the original source.

Countries also take different approaches to the treatment of unemployed people. In most countries unemployed people with previous job experience are classified according to their last job. But in some countries the unemployed and people seeking their first job are not classifiable by economic activity. Because of these differences, the size and distribution of employment by economic activity may not be fully comparable across countries.

The ILO reports data by major divisions of the ISIC revision 2, revision 3, or revision 4. Broad classification such as employment by agriculture, industry, and services may obscure fundamental shifts within countries' industrial patterns. A slight majority of countries report economic activity according to the ISIC revision 3 instead of revision 2 or revision 4. The use of one classification or the other should not have a significant impact on the information for the employment of three broad sectors data.

Longdefinition: Employment is defined as persons of working age who were engaged in any activity to produce goods or provide services for pay or profit, whether at work during the reference period or not at work due to temporary absence from a job, or to working-time arrangement. The services sector consists of wholesale and retail trade and restaurants and hotels; transport, storage, and communications; financing, insurance, real estate, and business services; and community, social, and personal services, in accordance with divisions 6-9 (ISIC 2) or categories G-Q (ISIC 3) or categories G-U (ISIC 4).


IndicatorName: Employment in services, male (% of male employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Employment in services (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Labor force with advanced education, female (% of female working-age population with advanced education)

Longdefinition: The percentage of the working age population with an advanced level of education who are in the labor force. Advanced education comprises short-cycle tertiary education, a bachelor’s degree or equivalent education level, a master’s degree or equivalent education level, or doctoral degree or equivalent education level according to the International Standard Classification of Education 2011 (ISCED 2011).

Topic: Social Protection & Labor: Labor force structure


IndicatorName: Labor force with advanced education, male (% of male working-age population with advanced education)


IndicatorName: Labor force with advanced education (% of total working-age population with advanced education)


IndicatorName: Labor force with basic education, female (% of female working-age population with basic education)

Longdefinition: The percentage of the working age population with a basic level of education who are in the labor force. Basic education comprises primary education or lower secondary education according to the International Standard Classification of Education 2011 (ISCED 2011).


IndicatorName: Labor force with basic education, male (% of male working-age population with basic education)


IndicatorName: Labor force with basic education (% of total working-age population with basic education)


Generalcomments: Data up to 2016 are estimates while data from 2017 are projections. National estimates are also available in the WDI database. Caution should be used when comparing ILO estimates with national estimates.

IndicatorName: Labor force participation rate, female (% of female population ages 15+) (modeled ILO estimate)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Data on the labor force are compiled by the ILO from labor force surveys, censuses, and establishment censuses and surveys. For some countries a combination of these sources is used. Labor force surveys are the most comprehensive source for internationally comparable labor force data. They can cover all non-institutionalized civilians, all branches and sectors of the economy, and all categories of workers, including people holding multiple jobs. By contrast, labor force data from population censuses are often based on a limited number of questions on the economic characteristics of individuals, with little scope to probe. The resulting data often differ from labor force survey data and vary considerably by country, depending on the census scope and coverage. Establishment censuses and surveys provide data only on the employed population, not unemployed workers, workers in small establishments, or workers in the informal sector.

The reference period of a census or survey is another important source of differences: in some countries data refer to people's status on the day of the census or survey or during a specific period before the inquiry date, while in others data are recorded without reference to any period. In countries, where the household is the basic unit of production and all members contribute to output, but some at low intensity or irregularly, the estimated labor force may be much smaller than the numbers actually working.

Differing definitions of employment age also affect comparability. For most countries the working age is 15 and older, but in some countries children younger than 15 work full- or part-time and are included in the estimates. Similarly, some countries have an upper age limit. As a result, calculations may systematically over- or underestimate actual rates.

Longdefinition: Labor force participation rate is the proportion of the population ages 15 and older that is economically active: all people who supply labor for the production of goods and services during a specified period.


IndicatorName: Labor force participation rate, male (% of male population ages 15+) (modeled ILO estimate)


IndicatorName: Labor force participation rate, total (% of total population ages 15+) (modeled ILO estimate)