After a brief introduction dealing with critical opinions of some economists on the European austerity policy, the authors point out that austerity as a means of achieving fiscal consolidation and financial stability is applied when the fiscal domain is weak. After analyzing the effects of the...

We calculate the short-run effect that the construction of the 230km-long Durango-Mazatlán highway in 2013 and of the 290km-long Mexico City-Tuxpan highway in 2014 produced on market-access in every location in Mexico. Our estimates suggest that the former highway produced benefits not only in...

The academic world says that the divorce between economists and politicians became visible during the financial crisis that began in 2008, when the economists were criticised for failing to preview the crisis, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, for the slowness in accompanying the...

The study will first outline the way in which Germany's fiscal policy was driven for several decades by a paradigm that centered on deficit control and reduced state involvement in the economy. It will assess the damage wrought by this strategy; for example, underinvestment in infrastructure and...

This document presents an impact evaluation of the pilot program Mi Primer Empleo Digno (MPED) – an active labor market program that provides classroom training and paid internships to low income youth from January 2009 to June 210 in main cities in Bolivia. Taking advantage of the...

This document attempts to identify the effects of the most comprehensive temporary employment program implemented in Bolivia, the Plan Nacional de Empleo de Emergencia (PLANE), on per-capita calorie intake and future prospects of employment and wages. Using methods for estimation and inference...

In post-conflict Liberia, the National Health Plan set out a process for transitioning from emergency to sustainability under government leadership. The Liberia Health Sector Pool Fund, which consists of DfID, Irish Aid, UNICEF, and UNHCR, was established to fund this plan and mitigate this...

We apply a standard tax-and-benefit-incidence analysis to estimate the impact on inequality and poverty of direct taxes, indirect taxes and subsidies, and social spending (cash and food transfers and in-kind transfers in education and health). The extent of inequality reduction induced by direct...

Noting that Africa’s resource-rich countries have not translated their wealth into sustained economic growth and poverty reduction, this paper shows that by transferring a portion of resource-related government revenues uniformly and universally as direct payments to the population, some...

We present evidence that measures of “social cohesion,” such as income inequality and ethnic fractionalization, endogenously determine institutional quality, which in turn casually determines growth.