Good health is a determinant of economic growth and a component of the well-being of the population. This chapter discusses and synthesizes economic models of individual and household behavior, showing how the models may be used to illuminate health policy making in low-income countries. The...

Few countries have higher wage inequality than South Africa, where wages of African and white workers differ by a factor of five. Using survey data collected in 1993, the authors analyze the complex effect of unions on this wage gap. Among male African workers in the bottom decile of the wage...

Population policies are defined here as voluntary programs which help people control their fertility and expect to improve their lives. There are few studies of the long-run effects of policy-induced changes in fertility on the welfare of women, such as policies that subsidize the diffusion and...

This study analyses the effect of trade unions on male earnings in the Kenyan manufacturing sector using a regression method, which takes into account endogeneity of the union status of workers. In contrast to earlier studies of the Kenyan labour market that report a negative effect of unions on...

Over coming decades, changes in population age structure will have profound implications for the macroeconomy, influencing economic growth, generational equity, human capital, saving and investment, and the sustainability of public and private transfer systems. How the future unfolds will depend...

Smallholder agriculture dominates Kenya’s agricultural landscape, accounting for 75 % of total agricultural output and 70 % of the marketed agricultural produce. As a result, the Government of Kenya, with the support of development partners, has invested in production and dissemination of...

Underutilization of medical facilities in African countries is widely believed to be a result of consumer disappointments with quality of care. This paper uses data from a randomized household survey, enriched with exogenous information on health facility attributes, to examine more deeply the...