In this paper the authors estimate the rate of return to firm investments in human capital in the form of formal job training. They use a panel of large firms with unusually detailed information on the duration of training, the direct costs of training, and several firm characteristics such as...

The effect of increasing school resources on educational outcomes is a central issue in the debate on improving school quality. This paper uses a randomized experiment to analyze the impact of a school grants program in Senegal, which allowed schools to apply for funding for improvements of...

It is often argued that engaging in indoor residual spraying in areas with high coverage of mosquito bed nets may discourage net ownership and use. This is just a case of a public program having perverse incentives. This paper analyzes new data from a randomized control trial conducted in...

Children in developing countries have deep deficits in math and language. Personalized coaching for teachers has been proposed as a way of raising teacher quality and child achievement. The authors designed a coaching program that focused on one aspect of teacher quality - teacher-child...

This paper investigates how enforcement of labor regulation affects the firm's use of informal employment and its impact on firm performance. Using firm level data on informal employment and firm performance, and administrative data on enforcement of regulation at the city level, the authors...

Monitoring data are generally collected as a by-product of the process of monitoring program implementation. Yet this rich source of data have not been exploited to assess the effectiveness of the program. In this paper the authors use detailed administered data from a large-scale,...

Randomly sampled workfare participants in a welfare-dependent region of Argentina were given a voucher that entitled an employer to a sizable wage subsidy. A second sample also received the option of skill training, while a third sample formed the control group. The authors analyze the effects...

The authors assess the impact of Argentina's main social policy response to the severe economic crisis of 2002. The program aimed to provide direct income support for families with dependents, for whom the head had become unemployed due to the crisis. Counterfactual comparisons are based on a...

One important concern of governments in developing countries is how to phase out large safety net programs. The authors evaluate the short-run effects of one possible exit strategy-programs that promote self-employment-in Argentina. They provide evidence that a small fraction of beneficiaries...

This paper provides evidence of the effects of a large-scale intervention that focuses on the quality of nutritional and child care inputs during the early stages of life. The empirical strategy uses a combination of double-difference and weighting estimators in a longitudinal survey to address...