The literature on aid and growth has not found a convincing instrumental variable to identify the causal effects of aid. This paper exploits an instrumental variable based on the fact that since 1987, eligibility for aid from the International Development Association (IDA) has been based partly...

An important challenge in the crime literature is to isolate significant causal effects of police on crime. Following a terrorist attack on the main Jewish center in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in July 1994, all Jewish and Muslim institutions (including schools, synagogues, mosques,...

Strategies based on growth and inequality reduction require a long-run horizon, and this paper therefore argues that those strategies need to be complemented by poverty alleviation programs. With regard to such programs, informality in Latin America and the Caribbean is a primary obstacle to...

The literature on aid and growth has not found a convincing instrumental variable to identify the causal effects of aid. This paper exploits an instrumental variable based on the fact that since 1987, eligibility for aid from the International Development Association (IDA) has been based partly...