We invite you to submit your paper to the 2nd conference on Public Institutions for Development: Supporting Firms and Workers organized around the following core questions:
- Labor demand: How does institutional capacity (and lack thereof) affect private sector growth and productivity?
- Labor supply: What institutions support effective skills development and workforce participation, and what are the capacity constraints that keep them from achieving their goals?
- Enabling the labor market as a whole: What are the implications for firms and workers when the institutions specifically designed to address jobs and labor issues have low capacity?

The conference will take place in person in Washington, DC on January 28-29, 2026, with streaming for non-presenting attendees. Presenters are expected to join in person. The organizers will arrange travel and accommodation for invited presenters. We invite you to submit a paper by Friday, October 31st 2025 (by midnight in the EST time zone).

We are particularly interested to feature work by researchers from or based in developing countries, and by other under-represented groups. We also welcome submissions by early career researchers and PhD students. Please do not hesitate to share this information with any of our colleagues/students/contacts who work in this area.

SUBMISSIONS/FURTHER INFORMATION: For more details, please visit: https://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2025/07/18/2nd-conference-on-public-institutions-for-development--supportin