In the absence of reliable and exhaustive income data, Proxy Means Tests (PMTs) are frequently employed as a cost-effective way to identify income-poor beneficiaries of targeted anti-poverty programs. However, their usefulness depends on whether proxies accurately identify the income poor. Based...

Most numerical targets within the framework of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are overly ambitious for the poorest countries when interpreted as country-specic goals. As a consequence, the current system undermines accountability and ownership and jeopardizes the public support the MDGs...

Most numerical targets within the framework of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are overly ambitious for the poorest countries when interpreted as country-specic goals. As a consequence, the current system undermines accountability and ownership and jeopardizes the public support the MDGs...

This study provides a re-examination of the aid-income link based on a panel data set which is downloadable at the Canadian Journal of Economics 45(1), 2012 issue. Longer time series data are available for a group of 58 countries and run from 1960 to 2007. In particular, the study aims at...

This paper uses an augmented sectoral gravity model of trade to investigate the link between German development aid and exports from Germany to the aid recipient countries. The findings indicate that in the long run each dollar of German aid is associated with an average increase of US$ 0.83 of...

One of the most frequent critiques of the HDI is that it does not take into account inequality within countries in its three dimensions. We use a simple approach, which allows to compute the three components and the overall HDI for quintiles of the income distribution. This allows to compare the...

The “missing women” dilemma in India has sparked interest in investigating gender discrimination in the provision of health care in the country. No studies, however, have directly examined this discrimination in relation to household behavior in health care financing. We hypothesize that...

Germany's education system stands out among OECD countries for early tracking: students are tracked into different secondary school types at the age of ten in most German states. In this paper we estimate the effects on educational outcomes of a reform that delayed tracking by two years. While...

Livestock holdings in rural areas of the West African Semi-arid Tropics (WASAT) are often substantial yet there is little evidence for precautionary saving in the form of livestock out of transitory income. The present paper re-visits farm households’ ability to smooth consumption ex post via...

Micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in developing countries are typically considered to be severely credit constrained. Additionally, high business risks may partly explain why the capital stocks of MSEs remain low. This article analyzes the determinants of the capital stocks of MSEs in poor...