This paper studies the benefits, in terms of reliability and frequency of poverty statistics, of conducting a hybrid survey that collects non-consumption data from all surveyed households and consumption data from only a small subsample. Collecting detailed consumption or income data for the...

This paper examines the effects of expanding access to credit on the decisions and welfare of households. It focuses on the entry of Banco Azteca, the first bank in Mexico targeting households from the informal sector. Panel data suggest that informal households in municipalities with Banco...

The Living Standards Measurement Study -- Integrated Surveys on Agriculture project collects agricultural and livelihood data in seven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. In order to maintain representativeness as much as possible over multiple rounds of data collection, a sub-sample of households...

Recruiting and retaining leaders and public servants at the grass-roots level in developing countries creates a potential tension between providing sufficient returns to attract talent and limiting the scope for excessive rent-seeking behavior. In China, researchers have frequently argued that...

This paper uses household survey data collected in September-October 2009 on a nationally representative sample of 2,000 households in Bangladesh to examine the nature of shocks experienced by households over the preceding 12 months and the type of coping mechanisms that were adopted. The...

The poor in Bangladesh are more likely to belong to households with a larger number of dependents and lower education among household members, be engaged in daily wage labor, own little land, and be less likely to receive remittances. This poverty profile for 2005 is similar to the profile in...

Seasonal migration programs are widely used around the world, and are increasingly seen as offering a potential"triple-win"-- benefiting the migrant, sending country, and receiving country. Yet there is a dearth of rigorous evidence as to their development impact, and concerns about whether the...