World Bank Group/JICA Joint Seminar on World Development Report 2015: Mind, Society, and Behavior

Development policies based on new insights into how people actually think and make decisions will help governments and civil society achieve development goals more effectively. A richer and more accurate understanding of human behavior can make it easier to tackle such difficult development challenges as increasing productivity, breaking the cycle of poverty from one generation to the next, and acting on climate change, finds a new World Bank report titled “World Development Report (WDR) 2015: Mind, Society, and Behavior” issued on December 2, 2014. The report examines early, exciting work that suggests ways of diagnosing and solving the psychological and social factors that influence development. The new approaches are complements to a host of other standard economic tools.

Varun Gauri, Co-Director of WDR, will present the report, followed by panel discussion with Japanese experts. Simultaneous translation (English and Japanese) will be provided.

Program:

10:00-10:05 Opening Remarks

Kiyoshi Kodera, Vice President, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

10:05-10:35 Keynote Speech

Varun Gauri, Co-Director, World Development Report (WDR)

10:35-11:25 Panel Discussion and Q&A

Yasuyuki Sawada, Professor, Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo /Visiting Fellow, JICA Research Institute
Norito Kawakami, Professor, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo
Varun Gauri, Co-Director, World Development Report (WDR)
moderated by Ichiro Tambo, Director, JICA Research Institute

11:25-11:30 Closing Remarks

Yasusuke Tsukagoshi, Special Representative, Japan, World Bank Group

Speaker:

Varun Gauri
Co-Director of World Development Report (WDR) and Senior Economist, Development Research Group, World Bank

Varun Gauri is Senior Economist with the Development Research Group of the World Bank and Co-Director of the World Development Report 2015: Mind, Society, and Behavior. His current research examines why public agencies comply with human rights court rulings and why individuals support public goods. His publications include the books Courting Social Justice: The Judicial Enforcement of Social and Economic Rights in the Developing World and School Choice in Chile. His research has appeared in top journals in the fields of political science, development, and economics. His work has been covered in The New York Times, The Economist, The Washington Post, and The Indian Express. He has BA from the University of Chicago and a PhD from Princeton University, and has held positions as Visiting Lecturer in Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and Visiting Professor in the Department of Economics at ILADES in Santiago, Chile. Website

Registration:

To attend, please register from the online registration form at the World Bank Tokyo Office website.

Please register from the World Bank Tokyo Office website.

World Bank Tokyo Office, Omori
Tel: 03-3597-6650 E-mail: komori@worldbankgroup.org