This paper examines fungibility as a possible explanation for the missing link between foreign aid and economic growth. The composition of aid plays a crucial role in determining the composition of government spending and, consequently, the magnitude of fungibility and its impact on growth....

This paper evaluates how Vietnam's Escuela Nueva (VNEN) program, an educational reform for primary schools supported by the World Bank, affected the cognitive (mathematics and Vietnamese) and non-cognitive (socioemotional) skills of students in that country. We use propensity score matching to...

This paper surveys gender earnings gaps in Colombia from 1994 to 2006, using matching comparisons to examine the extent to which individuals with similar human capital characteristics earn different wages. Three sub-periods are considered: 1994-1998; 2000-2001; and 2002- 2006, corresponding to the...

This paper analyzes the direct and indirect impacts of Brazil's Family Health Program. We estimate the effects of the program on mortality and on household behavior related to child labor and schooling, employment of adults, and fertility. We find consistent effects of the program on reductions...

COVID-19 is likely to have a large impact on the welfare of Tunisian households. First, some individuals might be more vulnerable to contracting the disease because their living conditions or jobs make them more susceptible to meeting others or practicing social distancing. Lack of adequate...

We present a systematic collection and assessment of impact evaluations of active labour market programmes (ALMP) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The paper delineates the strategy to compile a novel meta database and provides a narrative review of 51 studies. Based on these studies,...

The aim of this paper is to apply recently developed panel cointegration techniques proposed by Pedroni (1999, 2004) and generalized by Banerjee and Carrion-i-Silvestre (2006) to examine the robustness of the PPP concept for a sample of 80 developed and developing countries. We find that strong...

When policymakers and private agents use models, the economists who design the model have an incentive to alter it in order to influence outcomes in a fashion consistent with their own preferences. I discuss some consequences of the existence of such ideological bias. In particular, I analyze...

Many nations are seeking to reform their welfare states so that costs to the government can be reduced and the quality of outcomes improved. As a potential way to achieve these aims, there has been a surge of interest in the Singaporean model which features compulsory savings accounts and...

We evaluate the effectiveness of a more progressive tax scheme in raising government revenues. We develop a life-cycle economy with heterogeneity and endogenous labor supply. Households face a progressive income tax schedule, mimicking the Federal Income tax, and flat-rate taxes that capture...