In 1993 Argentina began implementing workfare programs, and workfare has become a central public policy starting 2002 when the government increased the number of beneficiaries from 100,000 to 2 million people in a country of 38 million. We explore targeting, poverty and employability effects of...

The ability of households to insure consumption from adverse shocks is an important aspect of vulnerability to poverty. How is consumption insurance achieved in a low-income setting where formal credit and insurance markets have been observed to be imperfect or missing? Using 2003 data from the...

Health care financing in Nigeria is dominated by private out-of-pocket payment that is not affordable to the poor. This has greatly reduced access to quality health care for the predominantly rural poor. Insurance schemes as options for increasing access to health care services have not received...

It is argued that without collateral the poor often face binding borrowing constraints in the formal credit market. This justifies a micro-credit program, which is operated by the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies to provide the poor with preferential credit. This paper examines poverty targeting...

Cette étude a pour objectif d'identifier la progressivité des services publics d'éducation et de santé en Guinée, en s'appuyant sur les schémas de consommation tirés de l'enquête sur le niveau de vie de 2002-2003. Les résultats suggèrent que l'éducation publique primaire est plus...

A general calculable equilibrium model, calibrated using the 2000 SAM, was developed to analyze the possible effects of an external price shock and the effects of a sectoral investment strategy on the distribution of income in Togo in the context of the PRSP. Analysis of the SAM was used to...

Latin America experienced six years of sustained growth from 2003-2008. The high rate of economic growth over these years – before the 2008-2009 crisis – positively impacted social and labour market indicators. Evidence of these positive impacts can be seen in the form of job creation...

This paper investigates the impact of the pilot phase of Paraguay’s conditional cash transfer programme, Tekoporã, on the demand for healthcare and education, and how much of this impact was due to the cash transfers and/or due to changes in behaviour/preferences, possibly as an effect of...

In this paper we propose a method to estimate externality effects in cash transfer programmes, even in cases when the benefit is not randomly assigned. Externality is assessed through the decomposition of the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) into participation (direct) effect and...

In the context of a sharp rise in the incidence of poverty and increasing inequality since the end of the last decade, a major tax reform was put into place in mid-2007 with the explicit goals of promoting both greater efficiency and equity in the Uruguayan tax system. Overall, the reform...