Inequalities in learning opportunities arise from both household, and school-related factors. Although these factors are unlikely to be independent, few studies have considered the extent to which sorting between schools and households might aggravate educational inequalities. To fill this gap,...

The ages of first union and of first parenting are of considerable interest, not only because of their implications for individual welfare and well-being over the life cycle, but also because they are strongly associated with fertility patterns that are thought to have important implications for...

Impact evaluations aim to measure the outcomes that can be attributed to a specific policy or intervention. While there have been excellent reviews of the different methods for estimating impact, insufficient attention has been paid to questions related to timing: How long after a program has...

Reducing the incidence of low birth weight not only lowers infant mortality rates but also has multiple benefits over the life cycle. This study estimates the economic benefits of reducing the incidence of low birth weight in low-income countries, both through lower mortality rates and medical...

We estimate natural-disaster impacts on children's school enrollments and math skills and test for impact heterogeneities with respect to age and gender in seven countries in Asia and the Pacific, which is the world's most disaster-prone region. We link survey data on children aged 5 to 17 to...

Reducing the incidence of low birth weight not only lowers infant mortality rates but also has multiple benefits over the life cycle. This study estimates the economic benefits of reducing the incidence of low birth weight in low-income countries, both through lower mortality rates and medical...

Different approaches have been used to estimate the economic benefits of reducing undernutrition and to estimate the costs of investing in such programs on a global scale. While many of these studies are ultimately based on evidence from well-designed efficacy trials, all require a number of...

Hundreds of millions of children are losing learning opportunities, resulting in potentially large losses in their lifetime education, health, income, and productivity. Losses in long-term earnings from preprimary program closures due to COVID-19 can be unprecedented. Acute effects are plausible...

This paper studies the effects of minimum wages in Indonesia around the time of birth on child height-for-age Z scores (HAZ) up to five years of age. Using variations in annual fluctuations in real minimum wages in different Indonesian provinces, it finds that children exposed to increases in...

Many studies have demonstrated that Mexico's conditional cash transfer program, PROSPERA, has substantial effects on educational attainment. Nevertheless, little evidence exists on whether increases in time spent in school have led to higher learning in the context of the poor areas where...