India experienced several years of fast economic growth during the 1990s, and according to many observers this period also saw a considerable decline in poverty, especially in urban areas. We use data from two rounds of the National Family and Health Survey to evaluate changes in nutritional...

We study the effects of risk and uncertainty on education in Indonesia. Households that face more uncertainty and that have limited or no access to formal insurance will have a higher motive for self-insurance, and this may have adverse consequences for investment in child education. A key...

This article analyzes the behavior of current account deficits in Africa. The findings are that deficits are (i) not very persistent; (ii) positively linked with domestic growth; (iii) strongly linked with public (and private) savings, suggesting that fiscal consolidation in IMF-supported...

This article, based on an intensive village survey in the Philippines, analyzes the effects of personal networks on rural villagers’ access to nonagricultural occupations and the terms of employment given to them. A key finding is that personal networks are selectively used to reduce...

This article presents first-hand evidence about land distribution and the impact of land markets in central Uganda. This area is characterized by unequal distribution of land inheritance, rural-rural migration, and active land markets. We show that land markets, and particularly land purchases,...

Breastfeeding increased in Ghana during 1988–98 despite women’s increased participation in the paid labor force. The modern health care sector seems to have been successfully promoting breastfeeding even over a period when other forces of modernization could have depressed breastfeeding....

Using data from the Philippines, this article seeks to understand how households in the study area apparently manage to avoid falling into a debt trap in spite of frequent borrowing. Findings suggest that this is achieved via three institutional features. First, most informal debt carries no...

India experienced several years of fast economic growth during the 1990s, and according to many observers this period also saw a considerable decline in poverty, especially in urban areas. We use data from two rounds of the National Family and Health Survey to evaluate changes in nutritional...

This article estimates farm household levels of technical efficiency and their determinants in Colombia, with particular reference to political violence (i.e., guerrilla fronts, homicides, kidnappings, and forced population displacements). An input-oriented stochastic frontier is estimated...