We analyze how the financial crisis affected a wide range of investments in Indonesian children and children's outcomes including school enrollment, immunizations, and mortality. Our dataset is the National Socio-Economic Survey (Susenas), a large nationally representative sample. We build on...

In this paper we examine the productivity of indigenous soil and water conservation investments in the Boukombe region in Northwest Benin, using an in-depth survey among 101 farmers on farm inputs, outputs, and SWC investments. We show that positive effects of SWC investments are only observed...

In Mozambique, easily treatable diseases such as malaria, diarrhea, and respiratory infections contribute to a heavy burden of disease. Notwithstanding efforts by the Mozambican government to promote access to health care, many who could benefit from simple cost-effective health care services do...

Growing concern that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will not be achieved by 2015 should not obscure the bigger picture that development progress has been occurring at unprecedented levels over the past thirty or more years. At the same time, the MDGs may perhaps create an unnecessary...

This paper tests whether consumer adoption of online banking is affected by the distance to one's bank branch. During the last decade, rapid diffusion of the Internet has dramatically changed the ways consumers conduct every-day businesses. An important trend in the rapid increase of Internet...

Transition from planned to a market economy is an evolutionary process. Evolutions do not have finite beginning and ending points. We may look to the beginning of transition in 1991 when the Soviet Union broke up, or we may see it as beginning earlier, when the Soviet Union began to allow its...

Utilization of health services are an important policy concern in most developing countries, reflecting both efforts to improve health outcomes and to meet international obligations to make health services broadly accessible. Although many policy and research initiatives have focused on the need...

In this paper data from a school survey in India is used to ask if there is evidence for the payment of performance related pay and whether such pay structures do impact on student achievement. It is shown that - after controlling for student ability, parental background and the resources...

Microfinance is one of the most commonly applied development interventions of our time. It is also one of the most gender-biased. In part, this is due to targeting. However, it might also relate to the emphasis placed by microfinance providers on group-loans. If women have a comparative...

In recent years, a large body of empirical work has focused on measuring and explaining socioeconomic inequalities in health outcomes and health service use. In any effort to address these questions, analysts must confront the issue of how to measure socioeconomic status. In developing...