Measurement error is an enormous problem in empirical work. In some types of analysis, it is often ignored for various reasons. In some others, however, it cannot be ignored because it affects the results of analysis significantly. We use a simple procedure to estimate the extent of measurement...

The social impacts of Indonesia’s crisis, while serious, have fortunately been less dramatic than early reports suggested. Rather than the universal devastation in poverty, employment, education and health so widely predicted and repeated in the media, new data reporting on conditions as of...

Do poor people benefit more or less than the nonpoor from an expansion in access to public services? And do those benefits depend on the existing level of access? Answering these questions is essential to strategies for empowering (or “investing in”) poor people, but the lack of panel data...

Governments aiming to improve the education and health status of their populations can increase the level of public spending allocated to these sectors, or improve the efficiency of public spending. Since increasing spending is often difficult due to the limited tax base of most developing...