This article, based on two books (Barr and Diamond 2008, forthcoming), sets out a series of principles for pension design rooted in economic theory: pension systems have multiple objectives, analysis should consider the pension system as a whole, analysis should be framed in a second-best...

This report is the first policy study of the China Economic Research and AdvisoryProgramme, in which eminent economists from China and abroad have participated. Thereport focuses on the problems faced by China in the reform of its social security system.On the basis of economic principles and...

Asthma is the most common chronic disease of childhood. Recent evidence hasshown a socio-economic gradient in its distribution. This paper examineswhether a number of factors argued to have led to a rise in the incidence ofasthma might also explain the social gradient. Several of these have been...

This paper examines pre-colonial interaction among polities along the Konkan coast, from Surat to Goa, during the long half-century c.1680-1756. Specifically it uses the dynasty of the Angrias, who were deemed pirates by the European powers but were actually an integral part of the Maratha...

This Report is about Reforming pensions in China, Chile and elsewhere.

This paper discusses the contribution made by American social scientists to thestudy of poverty in the past twenty five years. It has three parts. The firstconcentrates on the measurement of poverty and the fact that the US povertyline remained unchanged in that period despite its increasingly...