Until 1999, children born out of wedlock in Chile had fewer child support rights than those born to married couples. I interpret a change in this law as an increase in the household bargaining power of women in cohabiting relationships. Using a panel of cross-sectional data, I find a decrease of...

Governments provide foreign aid for both political and economic reasons, as is now well documented. Conventional wisdom holds that political motivations lower the effectiveness of aid in promoting developmental objectives. We test this claim by focusing on a setting in which we observe...

Can microfinance borrowers use the discipline of regular loan repayments in order to accumulate savings if prompted to do so? In an experiment, we offered commercial savings products to the microfinance borrowers of Guatemala’s largest public-sector bank. We find that giving these borrowers...

China’s transition from a centrally planned to a market economy has substantially eroded governmental support for child care, raising the concern about how the change of child care provision may affect women’s labor market participation. This article examines the impact of child care...

We analyze funeral arrangements after the deaths of 3,751 people who died between January 2003 and December 2005 in the Africa Centre Demographic Surveillance Area. We find that, on average, households spend the equivalent of a year’s income for an adult’s funeral, measured at median per...

In recent years, there has been an increase in the availability of longitudinal household surveys in developing countries that allow the researchers to construct linkages between households with familial ties. This type of data allows researchers to look at whether some household outcomes are...

Deficient birth outcomes entail greater mortality risks and higher probabilities of poor future health. This study examines the effect of the World Health Organization’s prenatal care recommendations for developing countries. It accounts for the endogenous nature of prenatal care decisions by...