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This IEG evaluation, requested by the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors, represents the first independent evaluation of the PSIA experience. The evaluation finds that:. • The PSIA approach has appropriately emphasized the importance of assessing the distributional impact of policy actions, understanding institutional and political constraints to development, and building domestic ownership for reforms. • PSIAs have not always explicitly stated their operational objectives (i.e., informing country policies, informing Bank operations, and/or contributing to country capacity). • PSIAs have had limited ownership by Bank staff and managers and have often not been effectively integrated into country assistance programs. • Quality assurance and Monitoring and Evaluation of the overall effectiveness of PSIAs have been weak. The evaluation recommends that the World Bank:. • Ensure that Bank staff understand what the PSIA approach is and when to use it. • Clarify the operational objectives of each PSIA and tailor the approach and timeline to those objectives. • Improve integration of the PSIA into the Bank’s country assistance program by requiring that all earmarked funding for PSIAs be matched by a substantial contribution from the country unit budgets. • Strengthen PSIA effectiveness through enhanced quality assurance.

The Sourcebook introduces a framework for social analysis in Poverty and Social Impact Analysis along with a set of practical tools that address the institutional, political, and social dimensions of policy design and implementation and how these impact poverty and distributional equity. It is designed for country practitioners working in policy analysis in a range of areas, including macroeconomic, sectoral, and public sector policy.

The complexity of ecological-economic systems significantly reduces our ability to investigate their behavior and propose policies aimed at various environmental and/or economic objectives. Following recent suggestions for integrating nonlinear dynamic modeling with input-output (IO) modeling, we develop a fully dynamic ecological-economic model by integrating IO with system dynamics (SD) for better capturing critical attributes of ecological-economic systems. We also develop and evaluate various scenarios using policy impact and policy sensitivity analyses. The model and analysis are applied to the degradation of fish nursery habitats by industrial harbors in the Seine estuary (Haute-Normandie region, France). The modeling technique, dynamization, and scenarios allow us to show trade-offs between economic and ecological outcomes and evaluate the impacts of restoration scenarios and water quality improvement on the fish population.

Background Understanding how policies lead to changes in health systems and in practice helps policymakers and researchers to intervene more successfully. Yet identifying all the possible changes that occur as a result of a new policy is challenging not only methodologically and logistically, as limited resources are available to conduct indefinite evaluations, but also theoretically, as a complete mapping and attribution of post-hoc changes requires a full understanding of the mechanisms underpinning all change. One option is to identify possible changes across a number of policy impact domains. Methods Using a Policy Impact Framework, we brought together data from media, documents and interviews to identify changes to midwifery policy, practice and provision, following the launch of a new global policy initiative, the State of the World’s Midwifery (SoWMy 2014) report published in 2014. We used these identified impacts to develop a map of the mechanisms underpinning these changes. Results SoWMy 2014 contributed to a number of changes at national levels, including increased status of midwifery within national governments, improved curricula and training opportunities for midwives, and improved provision of and access to midwifery-led care. These contributions were attributed to SoWMy 2014 via mechanisms such as stakeholder interaction and acquisition of government support, holding national and international dissemination and training events, and a perceived global momentum around supporting midwifery provision. Policy initiatives of this kind can lead to changes in national and international policy dialogue and practice. We identify factors and mechanisms that are likely to increase the scope and scale of these changes, at contextual, national and global levels. Conclusions Identifying changes following a policy using a policy impact framework can help researchers and policymakers understand why policies have the effect they do. This is important information for those wishing to increase the effectiveness of future policies and interventions.

This study examines the dynamics of Trump's tariff strategy, as well as its long-term impacts on the global economy, trade networks, and inflation trajectories through 2025 and 2030. Using updated statistics and economic models, the analysis shows how protectionist trade policies, which were designed to address trade imbalances, have instead contributed to supply-chain regionalization, a slowdown in global growth, and persistent inflationary pressures. Empirical evidence from 2020 to 2025 shows that the tariff war raised the U.S. trade deficit and delayed the expansion of international commerce. The report offers three forward-looking scenarios - Technological Protectionism, Strategic Recalibration, and Bloc Polarization - in order to assess different policy paths. The results show that while recalibration through selective liberalization could restore modest growth and inflation stability, sustained tariff rises could reduce global GDP growth to 1.7% and trade volume by more than 10% by 2030. Policy proposals emphasize the need to revitalize multilateral trade governance, coordinate monetary and fiscal policies, and promote regional production resilience through sustainable and unique tariff regimes. The research predicts that globalization will eventually shift toward \"managed interdependence\" by fusing strategic autonomy with cooperative frameworks. These findings provide an essential basis for policymakers, economists, and international organizations seeking to develop flexible policies for an increasingly fragmented global trade landscape.

Having clear picture on food security status and its major determinants helps policy makers and planners to introduce new policies that enhance food security. The study was aimed to evaluate the impact of policies, strategies and institution on food security and poverty status of the vegetables farmers in Gezira State with reference to the Blue Nile farmers. To achieve these objectives stratified random sampling technique was used to select the respondents from five localities lays along Blue Nile, so 150 farming households were interviewed. Food security Policy and strategy were collected by the mean of questionnaire targeting key line institutions. Poverty indices were calculated using expenditure as welfare indicator,Gini coefficient was applied. The results showed that the majority 75% of the respondents were above expenditure poverty line (7196)SDG. Moreover, the results showed that the poverty gap index was equal to five percent. Kamlin, Medani, East Gezira reported the higher expenditure distance from the poverty line (6 percent). The severity of poverty in the state is estimated to be two percent, likewise the severity of poverty in East Gezira was found to have a higher percentage (three percent). According to Gini coefficient the income distribution estimated at 0.46 while that for expenditure distribution is estimated at 0.31, these results showed a higher degree of inequality. The results showed that the poorest 20% of the population earned 0.06% of the total income while the richest 20% earned 45% of the total income. About 50.7% from the respondents use borrowing from others as one of their coping strategies.  About 78%of policy makers said that there was organized team from all institutions dealing with food security and nutrition issue, all policy makers in the state said there was strategy concerning the food security and nutrition issues. The study recommended that the cash transfer needed to lift the poor out of poverty that each poor person needs five percent of the value of the poverty line.

The relationship between open access and academic impact (usually measured as citations received from academic publications) has been extensively studied but remains a very controversial topic. However, the effect of open access on policy impact (measured as citations received from policy documents) is still unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of open access on the policy impact, which might initiate a new controversial topic. Research articles in the field of library and information science (LIS) were selected as the data sample ( n  = 48,884). Negative binomial regression models were used to examine the dataset. Furthermore, propensity score matching (PSM) analysis, a causal inference approach, was used to estimate the effect of open access on the policy impact based on a selected LIS journal ( Scientometrics, n  = 4019) that received the most policy citations among the LIS journals. Linear regression models, logit regression models, four other matching methods, open access status provided by different databases, and different sizes of data samples were used to check the robustness of the main results. This study revealed that open access had significant and positive effects on the policy impact.

Despite the negative externalities on the environment and human health, today’s economies still produce excessive carbon dioxide emissions. As a result, governments are trying to shift production and consumption to more sustainable models that reduce the environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions. The European Union, in particular, has implemented an innovative policy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by creating a market for emission rights, the emissions trading system. The objective of this paper is to perform a counterfactual analysis to measure the impact of the emissions trading system on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. For this purpose, a recently-developed statistical machine learning method called matrix completion with fixed effects estimation is used and compared to traditional econometric techniques. We apply matrix completion with fixed effects estimation to the prediction of missing counterfactual entries of a carbon dioxide emissions matrix whose elements (indexed row-wise by country and column-wise by year) represent emissions without the emissions trading system for country-year pairs. The results obtained, confirmed by robust diagnostic tests, show a significant effect of the emissions trading system on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions: the majority of European Union countries included in our analysis reduced their total carbon dioxide emissions (associated with selected industries) by about 15.4% during the emissions trading system treatment period 2005–2020, compared to the total carbon dioxide emissions (associated with the same industries) that would have been achieved in the absence of the emissions trading system policy. Finally, several managerial/practical implications of the study are discussed, together with its possible extensions.

Background The advancement of China’s Diagnosis Related Groups (DRG) payment reform represents a crucial measure to deepen the healthcare system reform, address the persistent rise in medical costs, and counter the imbalance between medical insurance fund revenues and expenditures. This study aims to evaluate the impact of the DRG payment policy on hospitalization costs for stroke patients. Methods Medical records of stroke patients discharged from a large public hospital in Northeast China between September 2018 and December 2024 were collected. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and Difference-in-Differences (DID) models were employed to analyze the impact of DRG payment on stroke patients’ length of stay (LOS), cost structure, and out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure share. Results After the implementation of DRG payment, the total hospitalization costs for stroke patients decreased by 19.31%. While treatment costs showed minimal change, all other individual cost items experienced significant reductions, with the largest declines observed in Western medicine costs (23.11%) and consumable costs (32.21%). The LOS and OOP expenditure proportions decreased by 8.90% and 2.83%, respectively. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that DRG payment reduced hospitalization costs by 18.48% for elderly patients, 22.68% for non-elderly patients, 21.97% for male patients, and 15.94% for female patients. Conclusion The DRG payment plays a vital role in optimizing the structure of hospitalization costs and controlling unreasonable cost growth.However, further efforts are needed, including deepening salary system reforms, strengthening the development of DRG information platforms, refining basic medical insurance, and providing medical assistance for low-income populations. Special attention should be given to vulnerable groups such as the elderly and women, with improved green channels and enhanced humanistic care.