Policy Research Working Paper 6851 Abstract Knowledge is central to development. The World Bank meet this objective. About 13 percent of policy reports invests about one-quarter of its budget for country were downloaded at least 250 times while more than 31 services in knowledge products. Still, there is little percent of policy reports are never downloaded. Almost research about the demand for these knowledge products 87 percent of policy reports were never cited. More and how internal knowledge flows affect their demand. expensive, complex, multi-sector, core diagnostics reports About 49 percent of the World Bank’s policy reports, on middle-income countries with larger populations tend which are published Economic and Sector Work or to be downloaded more frequently. Multi-sector reports Technical Assistance reports, have the stated objective also tend to be cited more frequently. Internal knowledge of informing the public debate or influencing the sharing matters as cross support provided by the World development community. This study uses information on Bank’s Research Department consistently increases downloads and citations to assesses whether policy reports downloads and citations. This paper is a product of the Operations and Strategy Unit, Development Economics Vice Presidency. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://econ.worldbank.org. The authors may be contacted at [email protected]. The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. Produced by the Research Support Team