This article examines the impact of a large supply-side education intervention in the Philippines, the Third Elementary Education Project, on students' national achievement test scores. We find that two years' exposure to the programme significantly increased test scores at grades 4 to 6 by...

Although there has been considerable recent interest in micro-credit programs, rigorous evidence on the impacts of forming self-help groups to mobilize savings and foster social empowerment at the local level is virtually non-existent, despite a large number of programs following this pattern....

Despite their potential importance and ease of modification, impacts of monitoring and loan recovery arrangements on micro-credit groups' repayment performance have rarely been studied. Data on 3,350 expired group loans in 300 Indian villages highlight that regular monitoring and audits, high...

Despite the popularity and unique nature of women's self-help groups in India, evidence of their economic impacts is scant. Based on two rounds of a 2,400 household panel, the authors use double differences, propensity score matching, and pipeline comparison to assess economic impacts of longer...

This paper examines the impact of a large supply-side education intervention in the Philippines, the Third Elementary Education Project, on students' national achievement test scores. It finds that the program significantly increased student test scores at grades 4 to 6. The estimation indicates...

This paper examines the long-term impacts of improved school quality at the elementary school stage on subsequent schooling investments and labor market outcomes using unique data from a recent survey that tracked students in the Philippines. The empirical results, which are based on a...

This paper uses a three-round 4,000-household panel from Andhra Pradesh together with administrative data to explore short and medium-term poverty and welfare effects of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Triple difference estimates suggest that participants significantly increase...

Despite the popularity and the unique nature of women's self-help groups in India, evidence on the economic impact of these groups is scant. On the basis of two rounds of surveys of 2,517 households, we use a strategy of double differences and propensity score matching to assess the economic...

While the literature on consumption insurance is growing fast, little research has been conducted on how rural consumption insurance is affected by democracy. In this paper the authors examine how consumption insurance of Chinese rural residents is affected if the local leader is democratically...

As more households in the People's Republic of China (PRC) are lifted out of poverty, it becomes increasingly difficult to address the remaining poor by implementing traditional cash transfer programs due to inaccurate identification and the welfare dependency issue. One solution is to implement...