This report is a joint product of the Office of the Chief Economist for the South Asia Re- gion (SARCE) and the Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment (MTI) Global Practice. Its preparation was led by Robert Beyer (Economist, SARCE) and Valerie Anne Mer- cer Blackman (Senior Economist, SARCE) under the oversight of Hans Timmer (Chief Economist, South Asia Region), in close collaboration with Manuela Francisco (Practice Manager, MTI) and Zoubida Kherous Allaoua (EFI South Asia Regional Director). The core team consisted of Sebastián Franco-Bedoya, Milagros Chocce, Ishita Dugar, and Rucheta Singh (all SARCE). Substantive contributions were made by Jiemin Ren,Takahiro Yamada,Virgilio Galdo (all SARCE) and by Tatsiana Kliatskova (Financial Sector Specialist) at the Finance, Competitiveness and In- novation Global Practice (FCI). Andrew Burns (Lead Economist, MTI), Benoit Philippe Marcel Campagne (Economist, MTI), Joseph Mariasingham (Asian Development Bank) and the DLW team from the Poverty and Equity Global Practice provided data and technical inputs. Box 1.1 was prepared by Jean Lee (Senior Economist, SARCE) with contributions from Mahreen Mahmud (University of Oxford), Jonathan Morduch (New York University), Saravana Ravindran (UCLA) and Abu Shonchoy (Florida International University). Box 1.4 and 2.2 were prepared by Maurizio Bussolo (Lead Economist, SARCE), Nayantara Sarma and Yue Zhou (both SARCE), with con- tributions from Laura Herrera and Sutirtha Roy (both Poverty and Equity Global Practice). Box 3.2 was prepared by Ilias Skamnelos (Lead Financial Sector Specialist, FCI) and Sadia Afrin (FCI) and Box 3.4 was prepared by Marius Vismantas (Lead Financial Sector Specialist, FCI).

The report greatly benefitted from inputs and comments from Marius Vismantas, Ilias Skamnelos (both Lead Financial Sector Specialists, FCI), and Angela Prygozhyna (Senior Financial Sector Specialist, FCI) under the oversight of Esperanza Lasagabaster (Practice Manager, FCI), from Martin Melecky (Lead Financial Sector Specialist, FCI), Andrej Popovic (Senior Financial Sec- tor Specialist, FCI), and other colleagues in FCI, from Lei ‘Sandy’ Ye and other colleagues in the Prospects Group (EPGDR), as well as from Guillemette Sidonie Jaffrin and Yutaka Yoshino (both Program Leaders at EFI SAR Regional Director). Useful comments and suggestions were also provided by numerous colleagues from the Office of the Chief Economist for the South Asia Re- gion, the Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment Global Practice – including by Poonam Gupta, Bernard Haven, Nazmus Sadat Khan, Rangeet Gosh, Pui Shen Yoong, Florian Blum, Gonzalo J. Varela, Muhammad Waheed, Melanie Simone Trost, Nyda Mukthar, Kene Ezemenari, Dhruv Sharma, and Tae Hyun Lee – as well as by participants of the 5th South Asia Economic Policy Net- work Conference on ‘State Intervention in Financial Markets in South Asia’ in Mumbai, India. Au- relien Kruse provided invaluable comments and suggestions throughout and coordinated the Macro Poverty Outlooks (presented as Country Briefs in Chapter 4).

Colleagues providing information for the Country Briefs include, Melanie Simone Trost, Pui Shen Yoong, Fernando Gabriel Im, Kishan Abeygunawardana, Mona Prasad, Kene Ezemenari, Adnan Ashraf Ghumman, Muhammad Waheed, Rangeet Ghosh, Dhruv Sharma, Sayed Murtaza Muzaf- fari, Bernard Haven, Nayan Krishna Joshi, Florian Blum, Poonam Gupta, Tae Hyun Lee, Tobias Akhtar Haque, Sebastian Saez, and Aurelien Kruse (all MTI) under supervision of Manuela Fran- cisco (Practice Manager, MTI).

Alejandro Espinosa at Sonideas was responsible for the layout, design, typesetting, and an accom- panying video, and William Shaw edited the chapters. Elena Karaban (Senior Communications Officer), Yann Doignon (Online Communications Officer) and Adnan Javaid Siddiqi (Consultant) at South Asia External Communications coordinated the dissemination, and Neelam Chowdhry provided valuable administrative support.

South Asia as used in this report includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Mal- dives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The cutoff date for this report was April 6, 2020.

South Asia Chief Economist Office Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment Global Practice