This paper examines the economic and social implications of the current system of residential electricity subsidies in Pakistan, and assesses the potential to improve the system's outcomes through alternative targeting and program design. The analysis is multi-disciplinary in nature, drawing on...

This paper examines China’s rural minimum living standard guarantee (dibao) program, one of the largest minimum income cash transfer schemes in the world. Using household survey data matched with published administrative data, the paper describes the dibao program, estimates the program’s...

This paper provides evidence of the effects of a large-scale intervention that focuses on the quality of nutritional and child care inputs during the early stages of life. The empirical strategy uses a combination of double-difference and weighting estimators in a longitudinal survey to address...

In April 2015, the Government of Ukraine abruptly raised the tariffs of natural gas to residential customers, which were previously well below the cost of acquiring gas and delivering it to households. The tariff increase - 700 percent—caused considerable distress to the population and led the...

The paper reviews the evidence on a "hot" and yet underexplored question -- that is, whether and how social assistance programs (especially cash transfers) affect domestic and international migration. Out an initial sample of 269 papers, 10 relevant empirical studies examine the question. The...

The longstanding “cash versus food” debate has received renewed attention in both research and practice. This paper reviews key issues shaping the debate and presents new evidence from randomized and quasi-experimental evaluations that deliberately compare cash and in-kind food transfers in...