The 2008-09 global economic crises have shown that no country is immune to external challenges. When policy controls are missing or not used efficiently, crises can reverse progress even in advanced economies. This unexpected outcome has increased concerns about the ability of governments in...

The aim of Health in All Policies (HiAP) is to bring diverse sectors together to find shared solutions; it focuses on identifying 'win-win' or 'cobenefits' such that policy measures contribute not only to improved health outcomes but also to outcomes desired by other sectors, such as education,...

Brazil's inequalities in welfare and poverty across and within regions can be accounted for by differences in household attributes and returns to those attributes. This paper uses Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions at the mean as well as at different quantiles of welfare distributions on regionally...

The "developing world's middle class" is defined here as those who are not poor when judged by the median poverty line of developing countries, but are still poor by US standards. The "Western middle class" is defined as those who are not poor by US standards. Although barely 80 million people...

Beginning in 2003, Turkey initiated a series of reforms under the Health Transformation Program (HTP) that over the past decade have led to the achievement of universal health coverage (UHC). The progress of Turkey?s health system has few, if any, parallels in scope and speed. Before the...

Beginning in 2003, Turkey initiated a series of reforms under the Health Transformation Program (HTP) that over the past decade have led to the achievement of universal health coverage (UHC). The progress of Turkey?s health system has few ? if any ? parallels in scope and speed. Before the...

The author exploits a unique data set on corruption containing information about estimated bribe payments by Ugandan firms. To guide the empirical analysis, he develops a simple rent-extortion model, which yields predictions on both the incidence of bribery, and the amount paid. Both predictions...

Recent studies have used homicide rates, police statistics, and crime victimization surveys to pinpoint violent areas. The author argues that these useful measures of crime, and violence underestimate certain types of violence (especially non-economic violence) and key dimensions of violence...

The purpose of this study is to build a stronger evidence base on the role of faith-inspired, private secular, and public schools in sub-Saharan Africa using nationally representative household surveys as well as qualitative data. Six main findings emerge from the study: (1) Across a sample of...

If bureaucratic burden and delay are exogenous, a firm may find bribes a helpful way to cut through red tape. According to the"efficient grease"hypothesis, corruption can improve economic efficiency, and,fighting bribery can be counterproductive. This need not be the case. In a general...