This study examines the medium-term effects of a two-year cash transfer program targeted to adolescent girls and young women. Significant declines in HIV prevalence, teen pregnancy, and early marriage among recipients of unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) during the program evaporated quickly...

This study conducted a randomized control trial in rural Burkina Faso to estimate the impact of alternative cash transfer delivery mechanisms on education, health, and household welfare outcomes. The two-year pilot program randomly distributed cash transfers that were either conditional or...

While most evaluations of education programs in developing countries examine effects one or two years after a program has been introduced, this study does so over an extended duration of a program. Administered in Punjab, Pakistan, the program offers cash benefits to households conditional on...

This paper evaluates the global welfare consequences of increases in mortality and poverty generated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Increases in mortality are measured in terms of the number of years of life lost (LY) to the pandemic. Additional years spent in poverty (PY) are conservatively...

Despite record economic growth for more than a decade, poverty has remained stubbornly high in Afghanistan, especially in the regions that suffered less from conflict. This paper aims to explain this paradox by combining a model of conflict intensity at the province level over period 2007-14...

This paper examines China's rural minimum living standard guarantee (dibao) program, one of the largest minimum income cash transfer schemes in the world. Using household survey data matched with published administrative data, the paper describes the dibao program, estimates the program's impact...

The long-term effects of Mexico's conditional cash transfer program, PROSPERA, on poor households are of great interest to policy makers and academics alike. This paper analyzes the long-term effects on the welfare of the original participant households and their offspring, about 20 years after...

This report examines the system of residential electricity subsidies in Pakistan, and explores how it can be improved to better assist households within the existing political and budgetary constraints. The report is multi-disciplinary in nature, drawing on specially commissioned analysis of...

This paper estimates the long-term effects on human capital accumulation and subsequent labor market outcomes of in utero and early childhood exposure to the civil war in El Salvador (1980-92), the second longest and deadliest civil conflict in Central America. Identification is obtained from...

This paper examines the economic and social implications of the current system of residential electricity subsidies in Pakistan, and assesses the potential to improve the system's outcomes through alternative targeting and program design. The analysis is multi-disciplinary in nature, drawing on...