There is widespread interest in estimating the number of hungry people in the world and trends in hunger. Current global counts rely on combining each country's total food balance with information on distribution patterns from household consumption expenditure surveys. Recent research has...

This review covers a nascent literature that experiments with survey design to measure whether the way in which we collect socio-economic data in developing countries influences the data and affects the results of subsequent analyses. We start by showing that survey methods matter and the size...

Night lights, as detected by satellites, are increasingly used by economists, typically as a proxy for economic activity. The growing popularity of these data reflects either the absence, or the presumed inaccuracy, of more conventional economic statistics, like national or regional GDP. Further...

The nutrition transition in developing countries has increased interest in moving the measurement and analysis of nutritional choice beyond calories to a more complete understanding of macro- and micronutrient consumption. To help move the literature on data collection forward we randomly...

A key challenge in developing countries interested in providing early childhood development programs at scale is whether these programs can be effectively delivered through existing public service infrastructures. We present the results of a randomized experiment evaluating the effects of a...

We present evidence from a randomized experiment testing the impacts of a six-month early childhood home-visiting program on child outcomes at school entry. Two and a half years after completion of the program, we find persistent effects on child working memory - a key skill of executive...

The goal of this study is to examine whether promising a Conditional Cash Transfer (conditional on matriculation) at the start of junior high increases the rate at which disadvantaged students matriculate into high school. Based on a randomized controlled trial involving 1,418 disadvantaged...

Consumers have increasing demands for product standards. This has important implications for development. This paper develops a firmal theory of the process of the introduction of high product standards in developing countries. The model endogenizes the introduction of high standards. Initial...

We analyze the effects of high standards food chains on household welfare taking into account general equilibrium effects and market imperfections. To measure structural production changes and welfare effects on rural and urban households, our model has two types of agents, five kinds of...

This paper develops a firmal theory of the endogenous process of the introduction of high quality products in developing countries. Initial differences in income and capital and transaction costs are shown to affect the emergence of and the size of the high quality economy. Initial differences...