This study reviews the African Region of the World Bank's current thinking on cost sharing and the poor as apllied in Sub-Saharan Africa. It inventories country experiences and Bank activities in cost sharing for education and health, reviews African experiences with the implementation of cost...

Albania provides a small amount of social assistance to nearly 20 % of its population through a system that allows a degree of community discretion in determining distribution. This study investigates the poverty targeting of this program. It indicates that relative to other safety net programs...

This paper explores the role played by policy instruments in access to housing finance by low-income households. It also analyzes the impact of housing credit and subsidies on both the quality of life and the quality of dwelling of the beneficiaries. Using the Quality of Life Surveys conducted...

Studies of the effects of pre-school programs on child development in developing countries have found scant impact. This study was conducted to reconcile the importance of daycare for child development with the empirical estimates of small effects. Using a random sample of 500 children from 100...

Many developing countries have made dramatic progress in promoting private sector participation in their infrastructure sectors, especially with the help of foreign investors. However, this has not been the case in Southern and Eastern Africa, which have been perceived as relatively unattractive...

Mexican public finances are weak; national tax collection as a percentage of GDP is among the lowest in the world. On the other hand, expenditure needs are enormous. There have been several attempts to reform our tax system but they have not been successful due to different factors such as...

Argentina had traditionally enjoyed one of the highest elderly coverage rates in Latin America. However, since the mid-1990s coverage rates started a steady decline, especially for low income workers. In response, the Argentine government implemented a series of sweeping reforms in the...

This paper examines the impact of the availability of fiscal revenues from nonrenewable resources on other revenues of Latin American and Caribbean resource-exporting countries. It compares the performance of nonresource revenues in these countries to that in other countries in the region. The...

This paper examines how a universal social insurance program proposed for Mexico can respond to cyclical variations in revenue while remaining selffinancing. More specifically, it discusses the issues involved in setting up a stabilization fund that can accumulate surpluses when revenue is...