Data from three rounds of nationally representative health surveys in India are used to assess the impact of selective mortality on children's anthropometrics. The nutritional status of the child population was simulated under the counterfactual scenario that all children who died in the first...

The paper provides an up-to date and selective review of the literature on how social safety nets contribute to growth. The evidence is carefully chosen to show how safety nets have the potential to overcome constraints on growth linked to market failures, and is organized into 4 distinct...

This essay discusses practical issues confronted when conducting surveys as well as designing appropriate field trials. First, it looks at the challenge of ensuring transparency while maintaining confidentiality. Second, it explores the role of trust in light of asymmetric information held by...

Most impact evaluations of Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) and Unconditional Cash Transfers (UCTs) focus on the returns to increased human capital investments that will be reaped largely or exclusively in the future (e.g., when current children have increased productivities as adults). But the...

The Global Forum on Nutrition-Sensitive Social Protection Programs, convened by SecureNutrition and the Russian Federation, brought together 150 donors, implementers, and country leaders to identify practical ways to link the nutrition and social protection agendas. This background paper served...

Most of the people in low and middle-income countries covered by social protection receive assistance in the form of in-kind food. The origin of such support is rooted in countries' historical pursuit of three interconnected objectives, namely attaining self-sufficiency in food, managing...

Results from this study of the extent and implications of attrition for three longitudinal household surveys from Bolivia, Kenya, and South Africa suggest that multivariate estimates of behavioral relations may not be biased because of high attrition. This suggests that demographers and other...

This article evaluates the Vaso de Leche (VL) feeding programme in Peru in order to illustrate an evaluation methodology based on targeting criteria for a decentralised transfer programme. We find that the degree of overall targeting of poor individuals attributable to the central government's...