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The Crimean War not only affected the Ottoman Empire politically, but also caused it to suffer economically. Although the war originated as an Ottoman-Russian war, there were essentially two sides of the war, Russian and British. France also supported the Ottoman Empire in order to protect both its domestic policy and foreign interests in the face of Russian expansionism. Britain, who adopted a policy of neutrality at the beginning of the war, perceived the Russian advance as a great threat to British interests in the following months and built a foreign policy to preserve the territorial integrity of the Ottomans. For the Ottoman Empire, even if the war was won, it started a great financial collapse. Because the Ottoman Empire had attempted to borrow foreign debt for the first time in its history. The foreign debts borrowed from Britain and France were almost the turning point for the future collapse of the Ottoman finance. On the other hand, when the researches on the Crimean War are examined, it is seen that important works have been revealed in the Turkish literature written on the war in almost the last twenty years. In our study, we will give priority to these works and introduce them briefly, and then we will try to examine the economic collapse caused by the war for the Ottomans in the context of foreign borrowing.

Rural electrification can have many benefits-not only bringing lighting, but improving the quality of health care, spreading information and supporting productive enterprises. The extent of these benefits has been questioned, arguing that they may be insufficient to justify the investment costs. This book quantifies these benefits. It finds that the benefits can indeed be high, substantially outweighing the costs, and that consumer willingness to pay is generally sufficient to achieve financial sustainability. However, benefits could be increased further by providing smart subsidies to assist connections for poorer households, promote productive uses and further consumer education.

This book deals with the evolution and context of the Bank policy for projects on international waterways. It starts with a brief description of how the Bank faced the challenges stemming from such projects, and the different approaches deliberated by the Bank that led to the issuance of the first policy in 1956. The Book then reviews the implementation experience and analyzes the principles and procedures, as well as the main features of each of the policies issued in 1956, 1965 and 1985. The principles of international water law prevailing at each stage of the policy updates are examined and compared with those of Bank policy.The book also discusses in details the notification process: its basis, by whom, to whom, its content, different riparians’ responses, and the exceptions to the notification requirement. It analyzes how the Bank handles an objection from one or more of the riparians to projects proposed for Bank financing. It also examines how the Bank has dealt with transboundary groundwater, as well as the linkages between the policy for projects on international waterways and the policies on disputed areas and environmental impact assessment. The conclusion provides an overview of the main findings of the book, and highlights some of the lessons drawn from the implementation experience of the policy.

This report reviews World Bank support to Egypt from fiscal 1999 through fiscal 2007. It analyzes the objectives and content of the Bank’s assistance program during this period. The Bank’s assistance program largely met its objectives and contributed significantly to policy and institutional changes, especially in the financial sector, privatization, pension system, and private sector development. From FY99 to FY07, the Bank committed just 2.1 billion for 18 investment projects and one policy-based loan. Bank analytical work has helped in the design of recent economic reforms and in monitoring poverty. The Bank’s long-term partnership in irrigation and water management has contributed to recent increases in agriculture productivity and exports. Bank efforts in rural finance have been less successful. The Bank has also contributed to improvements in Egypt’s human development indicators. Future Bank strategy needs to reflect Egypt’s middle-income status by including a flexible lending program and an emphasis on knowledge services, including reimbursable technical assistance. The Bank can further strengthen the partnership by focusing on (i) poverty and inequality; (ii) analytic work on macroeconomic analysis and income disparities and its improved dissemination; (iii) further financial sector reforms and indirectly combating corruption; and (iv) sectoral strategies and policy and institutional reforms in infrastructure and energy.

Fostering the entrepreneurship of women is important for Pakistan's economic growth and inclusion agenda, and access to financial services is an important component of starting and growing a business for women entrepreneurs. Most women?owned businesses are small, household?based cottage industries; microfinance products should be a natural source of start?up and working capital finance for this clientele. Microfinance portfolio data suggest that although Pakistan's sector has shown improvement in reaching women, it still lags its regional peers, only 59 percent of microfinance clients are women. The original purpose of this work was to determine whether women entrepreneurs have access to, and are using, microfinance loans as a source of finance for their businesses. However, the findings of the report go beyond the narrow objective of understanding whether microfinance institutions (MFIs) are reaching Pakistan's businesswomen. As the research unfolded, the evidence suggested that not only are women entrepreneurs not being served, but also that the outreach to women in general is potentially more limited than previously assumed and that the issues of consumer protection and responsible lending practices in Pakistan might merit further exploration. The report raises and addresses two distinct issues. First, some evidence suggests that women are often not the final users of loans, but rather are conduits to male household members. The report documents findings that suggest that the practice of passing on loans to male household members is potentially quite widespread; women may be bearing all the transaction costs and risks of accessing loans, but are not the final beneficiaries. Second, a very low proportion of female microfinance clients are entrepreneurs. The report explores why businesswomen in Pakistan may not be using microfinance products to meet their startup and working capital requirements, in spite of identifying access to finance as a key constraint to their business operations. The report focuses on products, services, policies, and other elements of the business model of microfinance in Pakistan that affect both demand for and access to microfinance by women borrowers, some of whom fall into the narrower category of entrepreneurs.

China and Africa have a long history of political and economic ties, which have greatly intensified in recent years. Both bilateral trade and Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa grew about fourfold between 2001 and 2005, accompanied by a major influx of Chinese enterprises and workers into the region. The natural resource sector, principally petroleum and to a lesser extent minerals, has been the major focus for both Chinese FDI to Africa and African exports to China. The report is structured along the following sections. Section two provides an overview of the growing economic ties between China and Africa, in particular the extent of current understanding of Chinese infrastructure finance in the region. Section three examines the data available from official Chinese government sources and discusses the methodological challenges inherent in quantifying the extent of official assistance for infrastructure finance. Section four presents the headline estimates on the value of Chinese finance based on the projects database developed for this report. Section five details the economic complementarities that exist between China and Africa, based on Africa's need for infrastructure and China's natural resource import requirements. Sections six and seven present a more detailed profile of Chinese-financed infrastructure projects in Africa on a sector-by-sector and country-by-country basis. Section eight presents the available information on financing mechanisms and terms, and considers the overall impact on country indebtedness. Section nine places the phenomenon of Chinese infrastructure finance into a broader international perspective, comparing it with flows provided by traditional Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) financiers and other emerging players such as India and the Arab countries. Finally, section ten draws out the main conclusions and implications.

Private for-profit institutions have been the fastest-growing part of the U.S. higher education sector. For-profit enrollment increased from 0.2 percent to 9.1 percent of total enrollment in degree-granting schools from 1970 to 2009, and for-profit institutions account for the majority of enrollments in non-degree-granting postsecondary schools. We describe the schools, students, and programs in the for-profit higher education sector, its phenomenal recent growth, and its relationship to the federal and state governments. Using the 2004 to 2009 Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS) longitudinal survey, we assess outcomes of a recent cohort of first-time undergraduates who attended for-profits relative to comparable students who attended community colleges or other public or private non-profit institutions. We find that relative to these other institutions, for-profits educate a larger fraction of minority, disadvantaged, and older students, and they have greater success at retaining students in their first year and getting them to complete short programs at the certificate and AA levels. But we also find that for-profit students end up with higher unemployment and “idleness” rates and lower earnings six years after entering programs than do comparable students from other schools and that, not surprisingly, they have far greater default rates on their loans.

A growing number and proportion of students rely on student loans to assist with the costs of postsecondary education. Yet little is known about how first-generation students use federal loans to finance their education. In this article, we examine each of the decisions that culminate in student indebtedness: the decision to apply for aid, whether to borrow, and how much to borrow. We find significant differences by generational status at each step of the student borrowing process. First-generation students are more likely to apply for financial aid, borrow, and take out larger loans than their peers, after controlling for a rich set of covariates for costs and financial resources. We find that student characteristics cannot fully explain these observed differences in borrowing outcomes across generations.

This study estimates the short- and long-term effects of undergraduate educational debt on students’ decisions to apply and to enroll in graduate school after completing requirements for a baccalaureate degree, using marginal mean weighting through stratification method (MMW-S) to analyze data from the National Center for Education Statistics Baccalaureate and Beyond 2008–2012 (B&B 08-12) survey. Although we find that historically and socioeconomically disadvantaged groups tend to accumulate higher levels of educational debt, our results indicate minimal effects of undergraduate debt on graduation school application and enrollment. We find no differences by race/ethnicity, family income, or status as a first-generation baccalaureate recipient in the effects of educational debt on graduate school application or enrollment.