Argentina implemented a major reform of its pension system in 1994. The new system has a mixed public-and-private two-pillar structure. Its main elements are an unfunded, defined benefit pillar operated by the state and paying a basic pension to all workers who meet the minimum eligibility...

Indonesia's labor markets, especially on the island of Java, have been transformed in the past 30 years, especially since liberalization picked up speed in the mid-1980's. The author explores the regional dimensions of that transformation. In some other countries, when labor markets changed,...

The Millennium Development Goals set quantitative targets for poverty reduction and improvements in health, education, gender equality, the environment, and other aspects of human welfare. At existing rates of progress many countries will fall short of these goals. However, if developing...

Between 1990 and 1992 in Slovenia, recipients of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits tended to remain (formally) unemployed until their benefits expired, before taking a job. Institutional set-up suggests, and labor surveys show, that many of the recipients were actually working while...

Public spending aims to promote efficiency and equity. This paper, drawn from a book on public spending and the poor, is concerned with the latter. In it, the author focuses on three key questions: what is the welfare objective? how are the benefits of public spending currently distributed? how...

The authors use household level data for Uganda for 1999-2000 and 2002-03, before and after the abolition of user fees for public health services, to explore the effect of this policy on different groups'ability to access health services and morbidity outcomes. They find that the policy change...

Case studies and anecdotal evidence have suggested that uncertainty about policies, laws, and regulations has hampered development of the private sector in many developing countries. The authors present results from a new cross-country survey that provides comparable data on local...

The authors examine the effects of local inequality on property and violent crime in South Africa. Their findings are consistent with economic theories relating inequality to property crime, and also with sociological theories that imply that inequality leads to crime in general. Burglary rates...

The authors develop comparative indices of environmental policy and performance for 31 countries using a quantified analysis of reports prepared for the United Nations Conference on Environmental and Development. In cross-country regressions, they find a very strong, continuous association...

Few studies have examined the impact of international migration and remittances on poverty in a broad cross-section of developing countries. The authors try to fill this gap by constructing a new data set on poverty, international migration, and remittances for 74 low- and middle-income...