Financial systems and development

name indicates, now includes International Com- years earlier for economic indicators and up to
parison Program (ICP) data on GDP comparisons. three years on either side for social indicators,
See the technical notes for details on these since the latter tend to be collected less regularly
changes.
but change less dramatically over short periods of
Data on external debt are compiled directly by time. All dollar figures are U.S. dollars. The varithe
Bank on the basis of reports from developing ous methods used for converting from national
member countries through the Debtor Reporting currency figures are described, where appropriate,
System. Other data are drawn mainly from the in the technical notes.
United Nations and its specialized agencies and Differences between figures in this year's and
the International Monetary Fund (IMF); country last year's edition reflect not only updating revireports
to the World Bank and Bank staff estimates sions to the countries themselves, but also reare
also used to improve currentness or consis- visions to historical series and changes in methtency.
For most countries, national accounts esti- odology. In addition, the Bank also reviews
mates are obtained from member governments by methodologies in an effort to improve the interna-
World Bank staff on economic missions and are, in tional comparability and analytical significance of
some instances, adjusted by Bank staff to conform the indicators, as explained in the technical notes.
to international definitions and concepts to pro- As in the World Development Report itself, the
vide better consistency.
main criterion used to classify economies in the
For ease of reference, ratios and rates of growth World Development Indicators is GNP per capita.
are shown; absolute values are reported in only a These income groupings are analytically useful for
few instances in the World Development Indica- distinguishing economies at different stages of detors
but are usually available from other World velopment. Many of the economies are further
Bank publications, notably the recently released classified by geographical location. Other classifi-
1988-89 edition of the World Tables. Most growth cations include 17 highly indebted countries and
rates are calculated for two periods, 1965-80 and all oil exporters. The major classifications used in
1980-87, and are computed, unless noted other- the tables this year are 42 low-income economies
wise, by using the least-squares regression with per capita incomes of $480 or less in 1987, 53
method. Because this method takes all observa- middle-income economies with per capita incomes
tions in a period into account, the resulting growth of $481-$5,999, and 25 high-income economies.
rates reflect general trends that are not unduly in- For a final group of 10 nonreporting nonmember
fluenced by exceptional values, particularly at the economies, paucity of data, differences in method
end points. To exclude the effects of inflation, con- for computing national income, and difficulties of
stant price economic indicators are used in calcu- conversion are such that only aggregates, where
lating growth rates. Details of this methodology available, are shown in the main tables. Countryare
given at the beginning of the technical notes. specific data for selected indicators for these coun-
Data in italics indicate that they are for years or tries, however, are included in Box A.2 in the techperiods
other than those specified-up to two nical notes.
159