The aid allocation to a province in a federal system should depend not only on how poor the province is but on how successfully it discriminates in favor of poor areas in public spending. In Argentina, stronger incentives are needed. Ravallion studies how well a federal antipoverty program...

Casual observations and the best data available indicate remarkable geographic differences in levels of living within China. What creates China's poor areas? Are they catching up? What should governments do? The paper provides an overview of recent research addressing these questions. There is...