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 ten...

Among the conclusions the authors reach about malnutrition rates, among different economic groups: 1) inequalities in malnutrition almost disfavor the poor; 2) it's not just that the poor have higher rates of malnutrition. The rate of malnutrition declines continuously with rising living...

Unexpected adverse events that affect areas or populations widely (covariate shocks) can have major consequences for the welfare of a society. Although the negative effects on households, especially among the poor, are well established in the economics literature, fewer studies have focused on...

Over the past decades child stunting in Ethiopia has persisted at alarming rates. While the country experienced several droughts during this period, it also received enormous amounts of food aid, leading some to question the effectiveness of food aid in reducing child malnutrition. Using...

The combination of conflict, food insecurity, and displacement generates competing claims for financial resources that stretch the donors' ability to provide funding and the humanitarian organizations' capacity to provide social assistance. The paper uses Receiver Operating Characteristic curves...

A popular identification strategy in non-experimental panel data uses instrumental variables constructed by interacting exogenous but potentially spurious time series or spatial variables with endogenous exposure variables to generate identifying variation through assumptions like those of...

Unanticipated spikes in food prices can increase malnutrition among the poor, with lasting consequences; however, livelihood strategies that include producing food for home consumption are expected to offer a measure of protection. Using anthropometric and consumption data from Indonesia...

Reducing child undernutrition is a key social policy objective of the Ethiopian government. Despite substantial reduction over the past decade and a half, child undernutrition is still high. With 48 percent of children stunted, underweight, or wasted, undernutrition remains an important child...

Maternal and child undernutrition is a pervasive and detrimental condition in Papua New Guinea. Despite rapid economic growth during the past decade, the stunting rate for children under 5, one of the primary indicators for child undernutrition, was estimated at 46 percent in Papua New Guinea in...