As evidence from rigorous impact evaluations grows in development, there have been more calls to complement impact evaluation analysis with cost analysis, so that policy makers can make investment decisions based on costs as well as impacts. This paper discusses important considerations for...

Cash transfers have been demonstrated to improve education and health outcomes and alleviate poverty in various contexts. However, policy makers and others often express concern that poor households will use transfers to buy alcohol, tobacco, or other "temptation goods." The income effect of...

Asia's green revolution in rice was transformational and improved the lives of millions of poor households. Rice has become an increasingly important part of African diets and imports of rice have grown. Agronomists point out that large areas in Africa are well suited for rice and are encouraged...

Transport connectivity is essential to sustain inclusive growth in developing countries, where many rural populations and businesses are still considered to be unconnected to the domestic, regional, or global market. The Rural Access Index is among the most important global indicators for...

The rise of Asia is something of a myth. During 1990-2005 China accounted for 28 percent of global growth, measured at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). India accounted for 9 percent. The rest of developing Asia, with nearly a billion people, accounted for only 7 percent, the same as Latin America....

Modern economic development is accompanied by the structural transformation from an agrarian to an industrial economy and occurs through a process of continuous industrial and technological upgrading. Since the 18th century, all countries that industrialized successfully in Europe, North America...

Standpipes that dispense water from utilities are the most common alternatives to piped water connections for poor customers in the cities of Sub-Saharan Africa. Fifty-five percent of the unconnected urban population relies on standpipes as their first water source. Other informal water...

The authors investigate what has motivated the large portfolio flows to several developing countries in recent years. Using monthly data on U.S. capital flows to nine Latin American and nine Asian countries (instead of monthly reserves data), they analyze the behavior of bond andequity flows to...

The apparently inexorable rise in the proportion of quot;missing girlsquot; in much of East and South Asia has attracted much attention amongst researchers and policy-makers. An encouraging trend was suggested by the case of South Korea, where child sex ratios were the highest in Asia but peaked...

Policies to tax farmers in low-income countries and policies to subsidize them in high-income countries have been identified as a major source of the disequilibrium of world agriculture. Recently, as many high-performing economies in Asia advanced from the low-income to the middle-income stage...