Turkey's poverty reduction performance in the 2000s has been remarkably consistent. Extreme and moderate poverty have fallen considerably since 2003. Between 2002 and 2011, extreme poverty fell from 13 percent to 5 percent, while moderate poverty halved from 44 percent to 22 percent...

Tajikistan was one of the fastest growing countries in the Europe and Central Asia region during the last decade. The economic growth was widely shared by the population and as a result poverty (measured by the national poverty line) declined from 73 percent in 2003 to 47 percent in 2009...

Past research often attributed most differences in student learning to socioeconomic factors, implying that the potential for direct educational interventions to reduce learning inequality was limited. The author shows that learning achievement can be improved through appropriately designed and...

While there have been numerous impact evaluations of unemployed individuals participating in retraining programs or in programs to foster self-employment, impact evaluations of enterprises benefiting from training programs for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are rare. The authors reevaluate...

This paper selectively synthesizes much of the research on Latin American and Caribbean labor markets in recent years. Several themes emerge that are particularly relevant to ongoing policy dialogues. First, labor legislation matters, but markets may be less segmented than previously thought....

The quality of education is a determining factor in competitiveness. In order to globally compete, Mexico would have to raise its standards beyond its current low achievement. Several innovations at federal and state levels have been developed to raise the quality of basic education. One example...

The end of the Multi-fiber Arrangement/Agreement on Textiles and Clothing in 2005 was a major policy change that affected the allocation of global apparel productions well as the lives of workers involved in this sector. Since the apparel industry is often the major female employer in developing...