Although South Asia has long been synonymous with persistent and unusually high rates of child undernutrition – the so called Asian Enigma – Bangladesh has managed to sustain a surprisingly rapid reduction in the rate of child undernutrition for at least two decades. We investigate this...

While reasons for out-migration are relatively well understood, little is known about why people return to their rural origins. We contribute to filling this gap in the literature by using 19-year tracking data from rural Tanzania to estimate the patterns and determinants of return migration,...

We utilize a rich cross-country data set to understand within-country changes in nutrition, with a focus on the role of general developmental factors. We find that economic growth is a strong predictor of nutritional performance, as is growth in food production, although only in more food...

Summary Throughout history, agriculture-led development strategies with state support programs have been essential to achieving rapid economy-wide growth, poverty reduction, and structural transformation. Yet over the last three decades, the domestic and international policy environments have...

Summary Like many other African countries in the early 1990s, Burkina Faso was urged to engage in a far-reaching liberalization of its state-led cotton sector. Instead it engaged in more gradual and sequenced reforms characterized by institutional innovations and partial privatization. But while...

Recent droughts in the Horn of Africa have again raised concerns over the viability of pastoralism. Vulnerability to drought, arguably increasing on the back of climate change and population pressures, provides a compelling justification for encouraging economic diversification. It is less...

We use longitudinal household data and propensity score weighting methods to assess the impact of Brazil’s Bolsa Família conditional cash transfer program on schooling outcomes of children aged 6–17years. Weak aggregate effects mask considerable heterogeneity. Among girls, the program...