**An important channel through which internal knowledge transfer occurs in the World Bank is cross support.** Cross support is generally defined as “staff time of an expert or specialist purchased from outside the responsible unit for a specific task” (IEG, 2012, pg. 56).<sup>4</sup> Tasks can be both operational and knowledge-generating in nature. Cross support can take the form of participation in team visits, preparation of key inputs for analytical and advisory activities (AAA), and peer review. Cross support is short-term by nature and does not include staff movement or rotation.

**There is little systematic research about the demand for and use of World Bank knowledge products** . Wagstaff (2012a) assessed the distribution of downloads among World Bank published ESW reports and finds an average of 123 downloads for the 799 reports in his sample. He argues that web-based metrics, such as downloads, could provide a useful tool for assessing demand for World Bank knowledge products. He does not identify the factors that determine the number of downloads. Ravallion and Wagstaff (2010) utilized Google Scholar to generate citation counts for a large quantity of books and research publications of the Bank.<sup>5</sup> They found that the Bank’s research record in development economics was on par with leading economics departments, but that a large portion of the Bank’s research goes uncited.  They also note that citations are dependent on the purpose of the article and the intended audience.  Factiva, a research tool that catalogues over 28,500 media sources, was used by Reeves (2011) to measure the coverage of World Bank publications.  She found that 1,442 out of 2,085 Bank titles received media coverage within the three year period after their publication.

**We find that more expensive policy reports on populous middle-income countries are more likely to be downloaded and cited, especially if these reports have the stated objective of informing the public debate** .<sup>6</sup> We find that more complex policy reports, such as those that focus on multiple sectors or core diagnostic reports, are also more likely to be downloaded and cited.  During the past 5 years the Bank finalized an average of 322 policy reports per year, of which 49 percent have the stated objective of informing the public debate. About 13 percent of all policy reports are downloaded at least 250 times, while about 32 percent are never downloaded.  Over 31 percent of policy reports are never downloaded, while about 13 percent are downloaded at least 250 times.  Almost 87 percent of policy reports were never cited but multi-sector reports tend to be cited more frequently. Internal knowledge sharing matters as cross support provided by the World Bank’s Research Department (DEC) consistently increases downloads and citations.

**The objective of this study is two-fold:** first, we provide objective estimates of the demand for and use of the World Bank’s policy reports; second, we discuss the roles that different costs play with regards to the demand and use of policy reports.   Since the generation and transfer of development knowledge by the World Bank is important in facilitating its objectives, getting a better understanding of the quality and impact of the Bank’s knowledge work is paramount.

**This study is structured as follows:** Section II describes the data on policy reports. Section III discusses the measures of demand for policy reports used in this study. Section IV presents data and

> 4 Cross support is generally defined as support of staff across vice-presidential units (VPUs). Cross support within VPUs is even more frequent and is key for the World Bank to deliver multi-sector knowledge productions and operations.

> 5 It included articles, working papers, books, edited volumes, chapters, and conference proceedings.

> 6 For the purpose of this study, policy reports are defined as those ESW and TA reports that have been published.

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