Precipitated by rapid globalization, rising inequality, population growth, and longevity gains, social protection programs have been on the rise in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in the last three decades. However, the introduction of public benefits could displace informal mechanisms...

Poverty maps are a useful tool for the targeting of social programs on areas with high concentrations of poverty. However, a static focus on poverty ignores the temporal dimension of poverty. Thus, current nonpoor households still face substantial welfare volatility and are at risk of becoming...

We examine the case for donors providing financial incentives to NGOs to increase community participation. We show that, when such incentives are provided, there need not exist any meaningful relationship between beneficiary welfare and the extent of community participation implemented by an...

Most conceptualisations of the bottom billion assume that "the poor" are a minority group in a state of continuous dependency, identifiable by region and demographic. Using a flow analysis (inflow and outflow) of poverty, rather than a stock analysis, we explain why poverty is more appropriately...

Strict containment limits the spread of pandemics but is difficult to achieve when people must continue to work to avoid poverty. A new role is emerging for income support: by enabling people to effectively stay home, it can produce substantial health externalities. We examine this issue using...

Social protection systems play a key stabilising role for individuals and societies, especially in the recent context of heightened uncertainties. Income stabilisation and related social policy objectives hinge on the extent to which social protection is accessible for those requiring support....

Why do damages from changes in environmental quality differ across and within countries? Causal investigation of this question has been challenging because differences may stem from heterogeneity in cumulative exposure or differences in socioeconomic factors such as income. We revisit the...

In 2013, the Government of Indonesia conducted one of the largest information interventions in histo-ry, in an attempt to further alleviate poverty and as a complement to the Social Protection Card (KPS). Drawing upon administrative data and nationally representative surveys, we evaluate the...

This paper asks what governments in the EU Member States and some US states are doing to support workers on low wages. Using model family simulations, we assess the policy measures currently in place to guarantee an adequate disposable income to working families, taking into account minimum...

Programs to fight poverty aim at allowing individuals to support themselves ex-post, when they are not part of the program anymore. We compare the ex-post effects of conditional and unconditional cash transfer programs on labor income. We use an experiment where low-income individuals are...