Population policies are defined here as voluntary programs which help people control their fertility and expect to improve their lives. There are few studies of the long-run effects of policy-induced changes in fertility on the welfare of women, such as policies that subsidize the diffusion and...

The program evaluation literature for population and health policies is in flux, with many disciplines documenting biological and behavioral linkages from fetal development to late life mortality, chronic disease, and disability, though their implications for policy remain uncertain. Both macro-...

This paper focuses on the relationship between public action and access to public goods. It begins by developing a simple model to capture the various mechanisms that are discussed in the theoretical literature on collective action. We use the model to illustrate the special assumptions embedded...

This chapter considers the linkages between agricultural development and rural non-farm activities. The chapter is motivated by growing evidence that non-farm activities provide an increasingly important share of rural incomes in many low-income questions, questions about whether increasing...

Over the past 50 years, people living in developing countries have gained access to technologies, such as high yielding agricultural seed varieties and modern medicine, that have the potential to dramatically alter the quality of their lives. Although the adoption of these technologies has...

In developing countries, rising incomes, increased demand for more skilled labor, and government investments of considerable resources on building and equipping schools and paying teachers have contributed to global convergence in enrollment rates and completed years of schooling. Nevertheless,...

This paper is a practical guide (a toolkit) for researchers, students and practitioners wishing to introduce randomization as part of a research design in the field. It first covers the rationale for the use of randomization, as a solution to selection bias and a partial solution to publication...

We analyze in this chapter the development and evaluation of a new genre of social programs termed conditional cash transfer programs which have become widespread across Latin America and are now extending outside the region. Conditional transfer programs typically link monetary transfers to...

Building on the large and growing empirical literature on the political behavior of individuals in low income countries, this Chapter seeks to understand corruption through the lens of political economy - particularly in terms of the political and economic differences between rich and poor...