This document presents an exploratory contribution to the understanding of the political economy of poverty alleviation. Usually, governmental decisions to apply macroeconomic measures that minimise the negative effects of adjustment on the poor, or to implement programmes specifically aimed at...

This paper analyzes how electoral incentives affected the performance of a major decentralized conditional cash transfer program intended on reducing school dropout rates among children of poor households in Brazil. We show that while this federal program successfully reduced school dropout by 8...

This paper shows that insecurity of property rights over agricultural land can have large efficiency and equity costs because of the way it affects matching in the tenancy market. A principal-agent framework is used to model the landlord's decision to rent when he takes into account the risk of...

Este trabajo es parte de las actividades que el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo viene desarrollando con el propósito de promover el desarrollo de las economías rurales de los países de América Latina y el Caribe. Un mayor acceso a tierras representa un instrumento estratégico de fomento...

The world of agriculture is in a state of crisis. And nowhere is this more important than for Africa, where economies depend heavily on agriculture and hunger is on the rise. Agriculture is in the headlines, but for the wrong reasons: failures instead of successes. It is receiving rare political...

Can microfinance borrowers use the discipline of regular loan repayments in order to accumulate savings if prompted to do so? In an experiment, we offered commercial savings products to the microfinance borrowers of Guatemala’s largest public-sector bank. We find that giving these borrowers...

Shielding the Poor presents a group of studies on social protection in the developing world from leading researchers. These studies address the issue of vulnerability of the poor to adverse shocks and propose policies to increase their protection and coping capacity. The studies emphasize the...