In this paper we estimate the effect of the Mexican conditional cash transfer program, Oportunidades, on consumption, and we explore some issues related to participation in the program and to the estimation of treatment effects. We discuss the comparability of treatment and control areas,...

This article differentiates itself from the large volume of existing literature on business groups, such as Korean chaebols, in several aspects. First, it uses productive efficiency rather than financial efficiency as a performance measure. Second, it defines chaebols in three alternative ways...

School autonomy and parental participation have been frequently proposed as ways of making schools more productive. Less clear is how governments can foster decentralized decision making by local schools. This article shows that across eight Latin American countries, most of the variation in...

This paper explores the impact of expenditure on smoking products in low-income households on child nutrition, as mediated via reduced food expenditure. On the basis of data from a large household survey in rural Indonesia, the study finds that low-income households containing at least one...

In the last decade, the most popular policy tool used to increase human capital in developing countries has been the conditional cash transfer program. A large literature has shown significant mean impacts on schooling, health, and child labor. This paper examines heterogeneous effects using...

This study tests whether manufacturing exporters pay more to educated workers in an effort to ascertain whether the productivity of human capital is raised by exports. Using a panel of matched employer-employee data from Morocco, we find no evidence that the education wage premium is higher in...

Microfinance is arguably one of the most effective techniques for poverty alleviation in developing countries. Although traditionally supported by nongovernmental organizations and socially oriented investors, microfinance institutions (MFIs) have increasingly demonstrated their value on a...

China's rapid industrialization over the past several decades, which has occurred in the absence of well-functioning financial markets, seems to defy conventional wisdom on the causal role of finance on industrialization. By conducting an in-depth case study on a fast-growing cashmere sweater...