Over the last decade Ecuador has experienced a strong increase in financial transfers from migrated workers. This paper investigates how remittances via trans-national networks affect human capital investments through relaxing resource constraints and facilitate households in consumption...

The expansion of education has been widely adopted as a key element in the development strategies of low-income countries. While there is substantial evidence on the benefits of greater educational attainment for subsequent labor market earnings, empirical evidence on the role played by school...

In 2001-02, Argentina experienced a wrenching economic crisis. Plan Jefes, implemented in May 2002, was Argentina's institutional response to the increases in unemployment and poverty triggered by the crisis. The program provided a social safety net and appears to have successfully protected...

We exploit variation in the design of sub-national health care financing initiatives in Indonesian districts to assess the effects of these local schemes on maternal care from 2004 to 2010. The analysis is based on a district pseudo-panel, combining data from a unique survey among District...

Low renewal rate is a key challenge facing the sustainability of Community-based Health Insurance (CBHI) schemes. While there is a large literature on initial enrolment into such schemes, there is limited evidence on the factors that impede renewal. This paper uses longitudinal data to analyse...

Based on household survey data and event history interviews undertaken in a highly shock prone country, this paper investigates which shocks trigger which coping responses and why? We find clear differences in terms of coping strategies across shock types. The two relatively covariate shocks,...

This paper argues that since 2005, the global security discourse has confused maritime piracy off the Horn of Africa with terrorism. American and European policymakers and financiers have tapped a vulnerable public imaginary to exaggerate Somali pirates as ‘maritime terrorists’ linked to...

Due to the limited ability of publicly financed health systems in developing countries to provide adequate access to health care, community-based health financing has been proposed as a viable option. This has led to the implementation of a number of Community- Based Health Insurance (CBHI)...

Between 2000 and 2011, Ethiopia rapidly expanded its health-care infrastructure recording an 18-fold increase in the number of health posts and a 7-fold increase in the number of health centers. However, annual per capita outpatient utilization has increased only marginally. The extent to which...