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This report is one of four analytical pieces on Ukraine's innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem developed by the World Bank's Ukraine Technical Assistance on Innovation, supported by the Swedish Ukraine Financial and Enterprise Sector Recovery and Growth Trust Fund. This report evaluates the quality mix of public support programs for science, technology, and innovation (STI) in Ukraine and provides recommendations for the improvement of the public support programs' effectiveness. The evaluation aims to determine the coherence in the allocation of STI expenditures in addressing the main innovation challenges in the country, as well as the main gaps and redundancies. The objective of the review is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of STI public expenditure and maximize impact. The methodology used builds upon the Public Expenditure Reviews (PER) for STI (Correa 2014) and compares the demand for innovation policies arising from an innovation ecosystem diagnostic with the actual expenditure on STI. Given the lack of budget programming, STI expenditure sourced from the BOOST database only approximates actual expenditure due to the lack of budget codes for all STI-related expenditure. The fact that most expenditure is disbursed as block funding reduced the granularity of the analysis. The analysis uncovered significant gaps related to STI policies and revealed general trends in STI expenditure.

Competitiveness and Competition Policy --- Industrial Economics --- Industry --- Private Sector Development --- Research and Development --- Science and Technology Development --- Technology Innovation

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As the push to engage in the global knowledge economy becomes increasingly vital to countriesaround the world, higher education institutions (HEIs) are being recognized as valuable centers for research and teaching in support of entrepreneurship, innovation, competitiveness, and economic growth. Many HEIs in Azerbaijan, however, lack the capacity to serve as effective dynamic hubs for such enterprising efforts, limiting Azerbaijan's ability to collaborate and compete with other nations in the global economy. Leveraging its expertise in this area, the World Bank carried out an analysis of the status of the research and innovation environment in Azerbaijan's higher education sector, identifying the main obstacles to the advancement of research work and its results and to effective coordination between higher education institutions and industry to achieve innovation-led growth. Science in Azerbaijan is examined through policy and institutional lenses, encompassing its governance, funding and management issues. The analysis looks at innovation as a dynamic outcome from university-industry collaboration, examining issues of technology transfer and intellectual property rights, the start-up environment, and funding of research toward practical and applied outcomes. The results of the analysis presented in this note, based on national and international data sources along with numerous consultations with a variety of stakeholders, informs concrete policy measures that can be taken by Azerbaijani authorities to strengthen the capacity of HEIs to serve as key actors in the country's innovation ecosystem and facilitate economic diversification within the global knowledge economy. Recently adopted national strategic documents are creating possibilities for reform by the MOE as well as by individual HEIs. The Education Development Strategy (EDS), approved by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2013, defines purposeful reforms in education with the main goal of building a competitive and leading education system in line with the world's best practices and based on cutting-edge technology infrastructure, quality and accessibility. The key findings and recommendations center on undertaking strategic efforts to maximize the quality and relevance of higher education as it relates to innovation and economic competitiveness.

Education --- Higher Education --- Innovation --- Research and Development --- Science and Technology Development --- Technology Innovation --- Technology Transfer --- Tertiary Education

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This report presents the activities and outcomes to date of the global initiative on remote sensing for water resources management phase two. The Initiative was conceived to help mainstream the use of beneficial remote sensing applications in operational projects of the Bank, as well as to facilitate the adoption of remote sensing applications in World Bank client countries. By bridging the gap between the supply of remote sensing data and the needs from the Bank's operational projects, Earth Observations can better inform client country agencies by improving monitoring and predictive capabilities and supporting better water-related operations. This report is addressed to technical staff in national water agencies, project leads from development and financing institutions, and water practitioners in general. The goal of the report is to present insights from a range of innovative remote sensing applications developed within the Remote Sensing Initiative, to help address specific water resources management challenges. The results presented here include constraints identified in the adoption of remote sensing, the approaches adopted to make applications functional in different contexts, the project applications themselves, insights on their sustainability, and ways forward. These applications can be replicated, up-scaled, and adapted in many other contexts to address similar challenges. We hope the information contained in this report will help country agencies and project teams in integrating the use of remote sensing in their water resources management practices, as well as in project design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

Climate and Meteorology --- Environment --- Natural Resources Management and Rural Issues --- Rural Development --- Science and Technology Development --- Technology Innovation --- Water Policy and Governance --- Water Resources --- Water Resources Management

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This paper develops the following price indicators to measure the relative efficiency (functioning) of markets: (a) price dispersion, (b) price volatility, and (c) price transmission (speed, completeness, and symmetry). The paper uses these indicators to study trends and conditions of the outlet level in retail prices for common commodities sold throughout Mexico. The analysis examines price patterns for each indicator across commodities, regions, and time. The descriptive results indicate that although there is (expected) heterogeneity in the behavior of these indicators across commodities, location variables explain the most variation in the indicators. There are clear and persistent regional- and commodity-specific effects. Thus, the study concludes that Mexico is not one, well-integrated national market. The study tested whether changes in these indicators (increased efficiency) have the expected correlation with measures affecting the functioning of markets. It considered changes in competition and entry of large retail stores in the local retail market. These changes affect market efficiency in the way theory would predict. The results suggest that these indicators are good measures of the relative efficiency (functioning) of markets. The findings also suggest that efforts to monitor markets using these indicators may be useful. For example, for policy makers who are concerned about the distributional effects of liberalizing trade, the indicators may predict where price impacts will be felt the most and by whom. In addition, the indicators provide preliminary information about relative competition levels, which may be helpful in saving the time and effort of the competition authorities and possibly making them more effective.

Competition --- Competitiveness and Competition Policy --- Entry --- Industry --- Integration --- International Trade and Trade Rules --- Prices --- Private Sector Development --- Technology Industry --- Technology Innovation

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This paper uses global census data to examine whether the labor market polarization and labor-displacing automation documented in the advanced countries appears in the developing world. While confirming both effects for the former, it finds little evidence for either in developing countries. In particular,the critical category corresponding to manufacturing worker, operators and assemblers has increased in absolute terms and as a share of the labor force. The paper then uses data on robot usage to explore its impact on the relative employment evolution in each sample controlling for Chinese import penetration. Trade competition appears largely irrelevant in both cases. Robots, however, are displacing in the advanced countries, explaining 25-50 percent of the job loss in manufacturing. However, they likely crowd in operators and assemblers in developing countries. This is likely due to off-shoring that combines robots with new operators in FDI destination countries which may, for the present, offset any displacement effect. Some evidence is found, however, for incipient polarization in Mexico and Brazil.

Employment and Unemployment --- Industrial Economics --- Industry --- Labor Market --- Labor Markets --- Science and Technology Development --- Social Protections and Labor --- Technology Innovation --- Trade Competition