Surprisingly, the most severe economic crisis the world has seen since the great depression does not appear to have had as dramatic an impact on poverty in Latin America as might have been expected. The exceptions to this heartening assessment are the countries geographically and economically...

Research from the United States shows that gaps in early cognitive and noncognitive abilities appear early in the life cycle. Little is known about this important question for developing countries. This paper provides new evidence of sharp differences in cognitive development by socioeconomic...

The authors examine how a government-run cash transfer program targeted to poor mothers in rural Ecuador influenced the health and development of their children. This program is of particular interest because, unlike other transfer programs that have been implemented recently in Latin America,...

Under some conditions, macroeconomic crises can have a positive effect on the accumulation of human capital because they reduce the opportunity cost of schooling. This has profound implications for the design of appropriate social protection policies. The impact of macroeconomic crises on...

A revised version was published as The Allocation and Impact of Social Funds: Spending on School Infrastructure in Peru (with Christina Paxson). World Bank Economic Review 16 (2): 297-319, 2002. - Education projects of the Peruvian Social Fund (FONCODES) have reached poor districts and, to the...

A revised version was published as The Political Economy of Expenditures by the Peruvian Social Fund (FONCODES), 1991-95. American Political Science Review 94 (2, June): 289-304, 2000. - As the literature on political influences on the allocation of discretionary funds predicts, spending by the...

Cash transfer programmes are a popular social protection tool in developing countries that aim, among other things, to improve education outcomes in developing countries. The debate over whether these programmes should include conditions has been at the forefront of recent policy discussions....

En este informe se analiza el impacto de las transferencias monetarias condicionadas (TMC) en los resultados actuales en terminos de pobreza, educacion, salud y nutricion. Para ello, se utiliza como fundamento una gran cantidad de evaluaciones de impacto de programas de TMC cuidadosamente...

Africa’s Pulse is a biannual publication containing an analysis of the near-term macro-economic outlook for the region. It also includes a section focusing on a topic that represents a particular development challenges for the continent. It is produced by the Office of the Chief Economist for...

Africa’s Pulse is a biannual publication containing an analysis of the near-term macro-economic outlook for the region. It also includes a section focusing on a topic that represents a particular development challenges for the continent. It is produced by the Office of the Chief Economist for...