The BSP's regulatory framework is broadly effective for the size and complexity of the Philippine banking system, but legislative gaps continue to hinder effective supervision of banks. The BSP has a well-resourced, experienced and highly committed staffing complement, but there is an ongoing...

Populist politicians have leveraged direct connections with voters to win elections worldwide, often using emotional rather than policy appeals. Do these forms of campaigning work for programmatic politicians as well? We partner with a mainstream opposition political party to implement a field...

The Global Monitoring Report 2014/2015: Ending Poverty and Sharing Prosperity was written jointly by the World Bank Group (WBG) and the International Monetary Fund, with substantive inputs from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. This year's report details, for the first...

"This paper explores the role of export costs in the process of poverty reduction in rural Africa. We claim that the marketing costs that emerge when the commercialization of export crops requires intermediaries can lead to lower participation into export cropping and, thus, to higher poverty....

We examine the preferences of low-income households in Kenya over the structure of unconditional cash transfers. We find, first, that most prefer lumpier transfers, and many prefer delayed receipt--unlike the structures typical of safety-net programs, but consistent with evidence on the...

Families in poverty face numerous barriers to establishing stable economic footing. This paper examines the effect of a holistic, individualized wrap-around service intervention on outcomes for low-income individuals. The intervention includes a detailed assessment, an individualized service...

Most antipoverty policy in the United States focuses on families with children, but efforts to assist childless adults have gained traction in recent years. We examine the impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit on the labor force outcomes of childless adults using the age-25 eligibility...