Understanding the institutional features that can improve learning outcomes and reduce inequality is a top priority for international and development organizations around the world. Economists appear to have a good case for support to non-governmental alternatives as suppliers of schooling....

The prevailing aid orthodoxy works well enough in stable environments, but is ill-equipped to navigate contexts of volatility and fragility. The orthodox approach is adept at solving straightforward technical or logistical problems (paving roads, building schools, immunizing children), but often...

Firms in Africa report "regulatory and economic policy uncertainty" as a top constraint to their growth. We argue that often firms in Africa do not cope with policy rules, rather they face deals; firm-specific policy actions that can be influenced by firm actions (e.g. bribes) and...

India is an emerging global superpower as its rapid growth has transformed its economy and has maintained itself as the world's largest democracy. But at the same time India lags in many dimensions--its malnutrition rate is one of the highest in the world, its immunization rates are lower than...

We estimate the "place premium"--the wage gain that accrues to foreign workers who arrive to work in the United States. First, we estimate the predicted, purchasing-power adjusted wages of people inside and outside the United States who are otherwise observably identical--with the same country...

Learning profiles that track changes in student skills per year of schooling often find shockingly low learning gains. Using data from three recent studies in South Asia and Africa, we show that a majority of students spend years of instruction with no progress on basics. We argue shallow...

Many reform initiatives in developing countries fail to achieve sustained improvements in performance because they are merely isomorphic mimicry—that is, governments and organizations pretend to reform by changing what policies or organizations look like rather than what they actually do....

There is an inherent tension between implementing organizations--which have specific objectives and narrow missions and mandates--and executive organizations--which provide resources to multiple implementing organizations. Ministries of finance/planning/budgeting allocate across ministries and...

Learning profiles that track changes in student skills per year of schooling often find shockingly low learning gains. Using data from three recent studies in South Asia and Africa, we show that a majority of students spend years of instruction with no progress on basics. We argue shallow...

Many reform initiatives in developing countries fail to achieve sustained improvements in performance because they are merely isomorphic mimicry--that is, governments and organizations pretend to reform by changing what policies or organizations look like rather than what they actually do. In...