This paper studies the incidence of public social sector expenditures in Peru using the traditional methods of benefit incidence analysis and several extensions of those methods. The data in Peru are unusually rich, with information on detailed social programs and a series of representative...

This paper examines the determinants of infant mortality rates in a cross section of countries using a "growth regression" approach. The paper argues that infant mortality is a valid measure of living standards, worthy of study in its own right. It also shows that first order differential...

Ghana has accepted the CAADP commitment to dedicate 10 percent of government spending to the agricultural sector. In a 2014 paper, Benin argues that Ghana falls short of that goal, and in a 2016 paper, Younger shows that despite the current fiscal crisis, there is fiscal space to meet the...

Ghana administers multiple social protection programs. One, pensions provided by the Social Security and National Insurance Trust, has a long history, but the rest of the programs have been introduced and expanded over the past two decades. This study assesses the performance of the government...

Lesotho has notably high levels of poverty and inequality despite a high level of government spending on social protection programmes. We assess the performance of this spending in reducing consumption poverty and inequality, applying benefit incidence and microsimulation methods to 2017/2018...