Conditional cash transfer programs are now used extensively to encourage poor parents to increase investments in their children's human capital. These programs can be large and expensive, motivating a quest for greater efficiency through increased impact of the programs' imposed conditions on...

Agricultural growth has long been recognized as an important instrument for poverty reduction. Yet, measurements of this relationship are still scarce and not always reliable. The authors present additional evidence at both the sectoral and household levels based on recent data. Results show...

Conditional cash transfer programs are now used extensively to encourage poor parents to increase investments in their children’s human capital. These programs can be large and expensive, motivating a quest for greater efficiency through increased impact of the programs’ imposed conditions...

Agricultural growth has long been recognized as an important instrument for poverty reduction. Yet, measurements of this relationship are still scarce and not always reliable. The authors present additional evidence at both the sectoral and household levels based on recent data. Results show...

This paper examines historically the World Bank's twin features: lending to developing economies to achieve tangible results and advocating specific development policies. Section 1 provides some conceptual underpinnings for the view that an effective state is essential for development. It asks...

This paper validates a recently proposed method to estimate intra-generational mobility through repeated cross-sectional surveys. The technique allows the creation of a "synthetic panel" -- done by predicting future or past household income using a set of simple modeling and error structure...

Between 2004 and 2007, no annual official statistics on poverty existed in Peru. This was due to serious problems with the household survey used to estimate poverty and implemented by the National Statistical Institute (INEI). Many of the technical issues arose from changes in the survey...

Peruvian public policy is currently focused on economic growth with social inclusion. The Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion (MIDIS)-created in October 2011-leads the sector and promotes evidence-based public policy using three strategic guidelines: 1) matching criteria and mechanisms...

Cash transfer programs have become extremely popular in the developing world. A large literature analyzes their effects on schooling, health and nutrition, but relatively little is known about possible impacts on child development. This paper analyzes the impact of a cash transfer program on...

Low aspirations can limit households investments and contribute to sustained poverty. Vice versa, increased aspirations can lead to investment and upward mobility. Yet how aspirations are formed is not always well understood. This paper analyzes the role of social interactions in determining...