Regular use of effective health-products such as insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITN) by a household benefits its neighbors by (a) reducing chances of infection and (b) raising awareness about product-effectiveness, thereby increasing product-use. Due to their potential social benefits and...

Our estimates treat the receipt of RFC assistance as an endogenous variable. We are able to identify apparently valid and powerful instruments (predictors of RFC assistance that are not directly related to failure risk) for analyzing the effects of RFC assistance on bank survival. We find that...

Given the wide use of childcare subsidies across countries, it is surprising how little we know about the effect of these subsidies on children's longer run outcomes. Using a sharp discontinuity in the price of childcare in Norway, we are able to isolate the effects of childcare subsidies on...

Shortly before the 2011 Libyan revolution, consumers' subsidies were rapidly increased by the regime in an effort to reduce social discontent. In the aftermath of the revolution, these subsidies became important for people's subsistence, but also a very heavy burden for the state budget. Since...

Under increasing budget pressure, Morocco carried out an extensive set of subsidy reforms in 2014 and is planning for further reforms for 2015-2017, which will eliminate most consumers' subsidies. This paper evaluates (ex post) the 2014 reforms and simulates (ex ante) the impact on household...

This paper examines the short- and long-run economic impact of Egypt's energy subsidy reform in July 2014 (without and without compensating transfers for the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution) and the decline in global energy prices, as well as the long-run impact of phasing out the...

This paper examines the economic and social implications of the current system of residential electricity subsidies in Pakistan, and assesses the potential to improve the system's outcomes through alternative targeting and program design. The analysis is multi-disciplinary in nature, drawing on...

We investigate the impact of a set of place-based subsidies introduced in Turkey in 2012. Using firm-level balance-sheet data along with data on the domestic production network, we first assess the policy's direct and indirect impacts. We find an increase in economic activity in...

Screening requirements are common features of fraud and corruption mitigation efforts around the world. Yet imposing these requirements involves trade-offs between higher administrative costs, delayed benefits, and exclusion of genuine beneficiaries on one hand and lower fraud on the other. We...