US federal transfers to individuals are large, countercyclical, vary geographically, and are often credited for helping stabilize regional economies. This paper estimates the short-run effects of these transfers using plausibly exogenous regional variation in temporary stimulus packages and...

This paper analyzes the impact of Covid-19 and uncooperative trade policies on world food markets. It quantifies the initial shock due to the pandemic under the assumption that products that are more labor intensive in production are more affected through workers' morbidity and containment...

This paper evaluates the global welfare consequences of increases in mortality and poverty generated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Increases in mortality are measured in terms of the number of years of life lost (LY) to the pandemic. Additional years spent in poverty (PY) are conservatively...

This paper presents the results of an impact evaluation of a performance-based financing pilot in rural areas of two regions of Tajikistan. Primary care facilities were given financial incentives conditional on general quality and the quantity provided of selected services related to...

Policy makers in Brazil attempted to improve human capital through changes in the legislated requirements for teacher education in 1996. They passed a national Law of Guidelines and Standards of Education that established 2007 as the deadline for all Brazilian basic education teachers to have...

How can the world reach herd immunity against COVID-19 before the second anniversary of the pandemic, or March 2022? A study of vaccine demand and supply answers this question. A target of vaccinating 60 percent of the population in each country by March 2022 is likely sufficient to achieve...

The COVID-19-triggered collapse in oil prices in March and April 2020 was the seventh, and by far the most severe, in a series of such collapses since 1970. This paper, first, compares this most recent collapse and its drivers with previous ones in an event study. It finds that it was associated...

A model of Covid-19 transmission among locations within a country has been developed that is (1) implementable anywhere spatially-disaggregated Covid-19 infection data are available; (2) scalable for locations of different sizes, from individual regions to countries of continental scale; (3)...