Community based health insurance (CBHI) is more suited than alternate arrangements to providing health insurance to the low-income people living in developing countries. The universal health insurance scheme, launched recently by the Prime Minister of India, is only one of the forms that CBHI...

During the 1990s, conditional cash transfers (CCTs) were adopted by countries across Latin America as central elements of their poverty reduction strategies. Alongside other developments in the area of social assistance, CCTs represent an opportunity for countries to develop an integrated and...

We examine the effect of immigration on public spending from a theoretical (political economic) and an empirical perspective. We distinguish between public spending on private goods and on public goods. Our model implies that whether immigration increases or decreases public spending primarily...

This paper investigates whether unconditional cash transfers can keep refugee children in school and out of work. We raise this question in the unique context of Turkey, which hosts the world's largest refugee population (including 3.6 million Syrians). Refugees in Turkey are supported by the...

Social policies play a critical role in the transformation of emerging economies. This paper discusses this with reference to China and India, with their very distinctive public policy approaches. Much of the economics literature either does not pay much attention to social policy or regards it...

The National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013 combines and expands the scope of some existing food-based welfare schemes. It will be distributing raw rations, meal(s) and/or cash. Approximately 81.35 crore persons or 16.57 crore households are to benefit under the targeted public distribution...

The paper presents a case for a phased rolling out of direct benefits transfer (DBT) for Food in India. By studying all states and Union Territories on three broad parameters: demographics, performance of the existing Public Distribution System (PDS), and current state of banking infrastructure,...

The literature on public employment policies such as the job guarantee (JG) and the employer of last resort (ELR) often emphasizes their macroeconomic stabilization effects. But carefully designed and implemented policies like these can also have profound social transformative effects. In...

Research into multidimensional poverty has gathered momentum in the last half decade, most notably in the aftermath of the global food and financial crises of 2007-2008. It has gained further momentum since the UNDP-OPHI launched the 2010 Human Development Report (HDR) and more recently as part...

The transitional economies of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) have enjoyed an extraordinary period of growth and poverty reduction between 2000 and 2007 and this occurred in concomitance with significant increases in private and public transfers to households. The paper assesses the relative...