The report shows that there is good evidence that conditional cash transfers (CCTs) have improved the lives of poor people. Transfers generally have been well targeted to poor households, have raised consumption levels, and have reduced poverty, by a substantial amount in some countries....

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...

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...

With the exception of Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean has been one of the regions of the world with the greatest inequality. This report explores why the region suffers from such persistent inequality, identifies how it hampers development, and suggests ways to achieve...

Over the past decade, faster growth and smarter social policy have reversed the trend in Latin America's poverty. Too slowly and insufficiently, but undeniably, the percentage of Latinos who are poor has at long last begun to fall. This has shifted the political and policy debates from poverty...

This volume presents a collection of studies on the dynamics of income inequality based on micro data. Using a simple but powerful empirical methodology, the authors analyze the roles of prices, occupational choice, and educational choice in accounting for household income and its contribution...

Life chances explore the state of equality of opportunities in Turkey. It builds on the concepts and ideas presented in the World Development Report 2006: equity and development. The authors assess how today's distribution of wealth and the success of children in learning to read and write are...

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...

After decades of stagnation, the size of Latin America's middle class recently expanded to the point where, for the first time ever, the number of people in poverty is equal to the size of the middle class. This volume investigates the nature, determinants and possible consequences of this...