Indicative planning which involves the establishment of sectoral targets which are not compulsory for the private sector and are embedded in macroeconomic projections that pertain to a period of several years. Indicative planning has been widely practiced in developing countries during the post...

China has experienced a wide-scale and rapid transformation from an agricultural based economy to the manufacturing workshop of the world. The associated relocation of the population from relatively low density rural areas to very high density urban areas is having a significant impact on the...

A variety of theories of skill formation suggest that investments in schooling and other dimensions of human capital will have lower returns if children do not have adequate levels of cognitive and social skills at an early age. This paper analyzes the impact of a randomized cash transfer...

The authors revisit the relationship between aid and growth using a new data set focusing on the 1990s. The evidence supports the view that the impact of aid depends on the quality of state institutions and policies. The authors use an overall measure of institutions and policies popular in the...

This paper reviews empirical findings from economic analyses of the role of gender equality and women's empowerment in reducing poverty and stimulating growth. Going beyond the large literature documenting the impact of female education on a range of development outcomes, the paper presents...

The link between poverty, and child labor has traditionally been regarded as well established. But recent research has questioned the validity of this link, claiming that poverty is not a main determinant of child labor. Starting from the premise that child labor is not necessarily harmful, the...

In the early 1980s, interest rate ceilings and other regulations affecting financial assets were lifted in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The paper finds that liberalization of interest rates significantly increased the real return on financial assets in Thailand and Indonesia,...

The interaction of fertility and infant mortality is well established. Lower infant mortality can lead to lower fertility by reducing the need for replacement births. Conversely, birth spacing improves the chances of child survival. To find out how these programs reinforce each other, a study...

This paper investigates how the potential duration of unemployment benefits affects the quality of post-unemployment jobs. It takes advantage of a natural experiment introduced by a change in Slovenia's unemployment insurance law that substantially reduced the potential benefit duration....