This book breaks away from the exclusively macroeconomic focus of development studies to bring the spotlight to the place where decisions are made: households. Complementing this microeconomic view with an aggregate approach, this volume uncovers clues to declining fertility, skyrocketing female...

This book examines poverty as a structural problem caused by the way economic systems operate. It poses a simple question: Why do poor people earn less? Case studies in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru find the poor caught in a vicious circle. They lack sufficient access to...

Shielding the Poor presents a group of studies on social protection in the developing world from leading researchers. These studies address the issue of vulnerability of the poor to adverse shocks and propose policies to increase their protection and coping capacity. The studies emphasize the...

This report moves beyond the conventional scope of economics to examine three entrenched structural factors -demography, geography and institutions- that are closely connected to economic and social development. Historical in nature and slow to evolve, these variables are not always in the...