Purpose: This paper critiques the last decade of research on the effects of high-skill emigration from developing countries, and proposes six new directions for fruitful research. Design/methodology/approach: The study singles out a core assumption underlying much of the recent literature,...

We develop a simple theory which formally describes how charities can resolve the information asymmetry problems faced by small donors by working with large donors to generate quality signals. To test the model, we conducted two large-scale natural field experiments. In the first experiment, a...

In this working paper, the authors introduce an MDG Progress Index to assess how on or off track countries are toward MDG targets. They find evidence of dramatic achievements by many poor countries, such as Honduras, Laos, Ethiopia, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Nepal, Cambodia, and Ghana. These...

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are unlikely to be met by 2015, even if huge increases in development assistance materialize. The MDGs are a set of quantitative, time-bound targets for indicators such as poverty, education and mortality in developing countries adopted unanimously by the...

We apply a standard tax-and-benefit-incidence analysis to estimate the impact on inequality and poverty of direct taxes, indirect taxes and subsidies, and social spending (cash and food transfers and in-kind transfers in education and health). The extent of inequality reduction induced by direct...

A natural outcome of the emerging pledge and review approach to international climate change policy is the interest in comparing mitigation efforts among countries. Domestic publics and stakeholders will have an interest in knowing if “comparable” or “peer” countries are undertaking (or...

The English version of this paper can be found at: 'http://ssrn.com/abstract=2609033' http://ssrn.com/abstract=2609033.Spanish Abstract: Aunque un número creciente de países emergentes está implementando las recomendaciones de capital bancario de Basilea III, este no es aún el caso en Chile,...

How should the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) respond to the challenges of the new century? As recently as the early 1990s, governments and policymakers in Latin America and the Caribbean relied on the IDB and other multilateral institutions not only as important sources of finance but...

Cash transfers are often a good way for developing countries to address economic and social problems. They are less expensive than directly providing goods and services and allow recipients the flexibility to spend on what they need the most, but for many developing countries, the technical...

There are two dominant narratives about taxation. One is taxes are the “price we pay for a civilized society” (Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.). In this view taxes are not a necessary evil (as in the pairing of “death and taxes” as inevitable) but a positive good: more taxes buy more...