"Freund and Ozden provide new survey evidence showing that loss aversion and reference dependence are important in shaping people's perception of trade policy. Under the assumption that agents' welfare functions exhibit these behavioral elements, they analyze a model with a welfare-maximizing...

"Expanding and improving basic education in developing countries requires, at a minimum, teachers who are present in the classroom and motivated to teach, but this essential input is often missing. This paper describes the findings of a series of recent World Bank and other studies on teacher...

"The authors report results from a randomized evaluation of a merit scholarship program for adolescent girls in Kenya. Girls who scored well on academic exams received a cash grant and had school fees paid. Girls eligible for the scholarship showed significant gains in academic examination...

Yemen is planning to export gas through Yemen Liquefied Natural Gas (YLNG) starting from 2009. Yemen is also aiming to develop the domestic gas market, in particular gas-to-power. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) export revenue and domestic gas sales are expected to partially offset the decline in...

"Recent changes in information and communication technologies have contributed to a dramatic increase in the degree of integration and interdependency of countries, markets, and people. Against this background, one aspect of particular concern for small states is the international movement of...

"A range of alternative empirical definitions of informal activity have been employed in the literature. Choice of definition is often dictated by data availability. Different definitions may imply very different conceptual understandings of informality. In this paper the authors investigate the...

"Recent literature and new data help determine plausible bounds to some key demographic differences between the poor and non-poor in the developing world. The author estimates that selective mortality-whereby poorer people tend to have higher death rates-accounts for 10-30 percent of the...