Progress in child mortality reduction and education attainment varies widely among oil-rich countries. This paper investigates the causes of this variation using an empirical model that departs from the available literature in allowing for explicit measurement of the impact of initial levels of...

What are the common characteristics among radicalized individuals, willing to justify attacks targeting civilians? Drawing on information on attitudes toward extreme violence and other characteristics of 30,787 individuals from 27 developing countries around the world, and employing a variety of...

This paper reviews the experience of the Middle East and North Africa region in education attainment over the past four decades (1970-2010). It documents the following main findings: (a) all countries in the region experienced significant improvements in educational attainment over this period;...

Although child mortality rates have declined all across the developing world over the past 40 years, they have declined the most in the Middle East and North Africa region. This paper documents this remarkable experience and shows that it is broad based in the sense that all countries in the...