This paper discusses two recent controversies surrounding levels and trends in the number of missing women in the world. First, the impact of fertility decline on gender bias in mortality is examined. Contrary to the expectations of some authors, fertility decline has not generally led to an...

In this paper, we analyze whether current demographic dynamics in Mozambique are likely to reduce per capita growth and poverty reduction. The findings suggest that population dynamics do not appear to be a major driver of changes in growth of per capita incomes, poverty, or inequality. At the...

The paper examines the link between population and per capita economic growth, and poverty, using the interesting case study of Uganda. Although Uganda has recently experienced excellent economic growth and poverty reduction, it currently has one of the highest population growth rates in the...

This paper examines the link between population and per capita economic growth in Uganda. After showing that Uganda has one of the highest population growth rates in the world which, due to the inherent demographic momentum, will persist for some time to come, it then considers the impact of...

The excess female mortality in India and other South Asian countries is no longer contentious. Less known are the reasons for such excess female mortality in the country. In this study, we argue that intra-household gender-discrimination in receipt of medical attention can be one of the most...

This paper examines the relationship between measures of income poverty, undernourishment, childhood undernutrition, and child mortality in developing countries. While there is, as expected, a close aggregate correlation between these measures of deprivation, the measures generate some...

There is a well-known debate about the roles of geography versus institutions in explaining the long-term development of countries. These debates have usually been based on cross-country regressions where questions about parameter heterogeneity, unobserved heterogeneity, and endogeneity cannot...

As is now well documented, aid is given for both political as well as economic reasons. The conventional wisdom is that politically-motivated aid is less effective in promoting developmental objectives. We examine the ex-post performance ratings of World Bank projects and generally find that...

The most limiting weakness of the human development index (HDI) is that it looks only at average achievements and does not take into account the distribution of human development within a country or population subgroups. All previous attempts to capture inequality in the HDI have also used...

This case study examines to what extent Bolivia has been able to achieve pro-poor growth, what the mechanisms of achieving (or failing to achieve) pro-poor growth have been, and what options are available to ensure higher rates of pro-poor growth. The analysis focuses on the period from 1989 to...