Transfer programs have been shown to reduce intimate partner violence (IPV), but little evidence exists on how activities linked to transfers affect IPV or what happens when programs end. We assess postprogram impacts on IPV of randomly assigning women in Bangladesh to receive cash or food, with...

This paper examines the impact of pre-school malnutrition on subsequent human capital formation in rural Zimbabwe using a maternal fixed effects-instrumental variables (MFE-IV) estimator with a long term panel data set. Representations of civil war and drought shocks are used to identify...

This paper examines consumption smoothing in the Zone Lacustre, Mali, a poor region in one of the poorest countries in the world. Idiosyncratic shocks appear to have little impact on consumption. A stronger test of consumption smoothing shows that controlling for covariate shocks, changes in...

A newly constructed comprehensive database of 122 targeted antipoverty interventions in 48 countries is used to examine the contested issue of the efficacy of targeting interventions in developing countries. Though the median program transfers 25 percent more to poor individuals (those in the...

The current global agreement governing food aid - the Food Aid Convention (FAC) - has been subject to annual renewals since it expired in 2002. Critics have pointed to some serious limitations, but negotiations over a new FAC have become entangled in U.S.-European agricultural trade disputes....

We assess the impact of a large-scale social protection intervention, Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), over a 15-year period. We find that the PSNP had a positive impact on food security but inconsistent impacts on assets. There were positive impacts on fertilizer use,...

Economists often default to the assumption that cash is always preferable to an in-kind transfer. Do beneficiaries feel the same way? This paper addresses this issue using longitudinal household data from Ethiopia where a large-scale social safety net intervention (PSNP) operates. Even though...

This paper assesses the impact of Ethiopia's flagship social protection program, the Productive Safety Net Program on the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food and nutrition security of households, mothers, and children. The analysis uses pre-pandemic, in-person household survey...

This paper revisits the economic consequences of land fragmentation, taking seriously concerns regarding the exogeneity of fragmentation, its measurement and the importance of considering impacts in terms of welfare metrics. Using data that are well-suited to addressing these issues, the...