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The air transport sector is an integral part of economic growth and development. As the only available means of transporting passengers and goods across the globe within a single day, air transport provides critical connectivity between regions and better access to global markets. The creation of these benefits, however, leads to detrimental impacts on the environment and public health, including the emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gases (GHGs). This report emphasizes SAF as the main mitigation option that can most readily realize substantial GHG emission savings for air transport in the medium term (for example, the next 5 to 10 years). Sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) is the term used by the aviation industry to describe a set of fuels that can be sustainably produced and generate lower CO2 emissions than conventional kerosene on a life-cycle basis. In the context of international regulation developed under the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), SAF is defined more precisely as a renewable or waste-derived aviation fuel that meets a set of Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) Sustainability Criteria, including a GHG emission reduction criterion. Finally, continued support for sustainable aviation-fuel research and development is needed. This should include the development of feedstock supply chains, new and innovative production technologies, and the development of innovative business models that increase the value of all products and by-products of SAF production operations. As the SAF production and distribution network becomes global, a deeper analysis is also needed to design the structure of biomass feedstock and refined fuel products transportation, whether distributed or centralized, in streamlined supply chains.

Airplanes --- Jet propulsion.

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Explores the journey of how to become a stronger, more inspiring, inclusive leader now at the beginning of the digital age.

Leadership. --- Technological innovations. --- Innovations.

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This paper considers the political influence of private firms. While such influence is frequently discussed, there is limited analysis of how firms combine political interactions, and under what conditions, to gain influence. The exception is the large literature on firms with political connections, with findings generally showing large gains to firms with those direct relationships. This paper extends the discussion of influence beyond political connections alone and uses a rich firm-level data set from 41 economies, which includes information on several interactions with political actors. Using a Bayesian item response theory (IRT) measurement model, an index of Political Influence is estimated, with the prior assumption that political connections yield more influence. Membership in a business association is found to enhance influence, while such influence is offset by bribes, state ownership, firm size, and a reliance on collective lobbying. Political Influence is found to be broadly higher in economies with poorer governance but more dispersed in those with better governance. Within economies, higher influence is associated with a higher likelihood of reporting a small number of competitors, higher sales, and lower labor inputs relative to sales. These findings are robust across several models that incorporate high-dimensional fixed effects, incorporating measurement error in the index, and varying these relationships over several governance measures.

Sustainable development.

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This paper investigates whether electricity consumption is a useful indicator for tracking economic fluctuations in Bangladesh. It presents monthly data on national electricity consumption since 1993 and daily consumption data since February 2010 for the country's eight divisions. National electricity consumption is strongly correlated with other high-frequency indicators of economic activity, and it has declined during natural disasters and the COVID-19 lockdowns. The paper estimates an electricity consumption model that explains over 90 percent of the variation in daily consumption based on the trend, seasonality, within-week variation, holidays, Ramadan, and temperature. Deviations from the model prediction can act as in indicator of economic fluctuations. For example, during the first COVID-19 lockdown in April 2020, electricity consumption in Dhaka fell over 40 percent compared with normal and remained below the normal level until early 2021. The later lockdowns, in contrast, had only small additional impacts, in line with less stringent containment measures and more effective adaptation.

Energy consumption. --- Economic forecasting.

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This note describes the options available to governments for establishing high-level institutional structures that can be used to improve the performance of their institutional framework for foreign investment promotion. The note discusses the context in which each of the options presented may be the best response to a specific problem or need. The note analyses the features, conditions, and strengths of five high-level institutional structures that can help improve the performance of the institutional framework for investment promotion: Investor Roundtables, Investment Councils, Ministerial Committees, IPA Boards, and Expert Commissions. The note summarizes the ability of each institution type to improve institutional coordination, enhance performance, provide insight, and deliver in-depth knowledge, and it describes the features of each. The note concludes that high-level institutional structures can address the underperformance of the institutional framework for foreign investment promotion when the cause has been duly identified, the strengths of the selected high-level structure match the cause of the problem, the setup follows international good practice, and the selection is based on consultations with private sector and effective interdepartmental coordination. Finally, the note acknowledges that the research on high-level structures is at an early stage and encourages further research of the topic.

Business and politics. --- Industrial policy.