How do conditional cash transfers impact health-related outcomes? This paper examines the 2010 randomized introduction of a program in Tanzania and finds nuanced impacts. An initial surge in clinic visits after 1.5 years -- due to more visits by those already complying with program health...

This report draws deeply on the extraordinary efforts and innovations demonstrated by early child development policy makers around Brazil. This report draws on background papers about innovations in early child education in Rio de Janeiro and in caregiver training and supervision in two...

What drives governments with similar revenues to publicly provide very different amounts of goods for which private substitutes are available? Key examples are education and health care. This paper compares spending by Brazilian municipalities on pre-primary education -- a good that is also...

Government policies are routinely subjected to rigorous cost analyses. Yet one of today's most controversial and expensive policies - the ongoing war in Iraq - has not been. The $212 billion allocated by the U.S. Treasury has been widely reported. But the real, direct economic costs include more...

Economic analysis of life-saving investments in both the public and private sectors has the potential to dramatically improve longevity and the quality of life, but only if the analyses on which decisions are based are done well. In this paper we analyze a dataset that provides information on...

Whether water systems should be owned and operated by governments or private firms is intensely controversial, and little empirical research sheds light on the issue. In this paper we use a panel dataset that includes every community water system in the U.S. from 1997-2003 to test the effects of...

Does the establishment of private property rights to land improve child health and nutrition outcomes? We exploit a natural experiment in the Kyrgyz Republic following the collapse of socialism, whereby the government rapidly liquidated state and collective farms containing 75 percent of...