Aid programs in developing countries are likely to affect all households living in the treated areas, both eligible and non-eligible ones. Studies that focus on the treatment effect on the treated may fail to capture important spillover effects. We exploit the unique design of an aid program's...

Public works programs in developing countries can reduce poverty in the long term and help lowskilled workers cope with economic shocks in the short term. But success depends on a scheme's design and implementation. Key design factors are: properly identifying the target population; selecting...

Many developing country governments determine eligibility for anti-poverty programs using censuses of household assets. Does this distort subsequent reporting of, or actual purchases of, those assets? We ran a nationwide experiment in Indonesia where, in randomly selected provinces, the...

This paper studies the impact of a community-driven development program, District Poverty Initiatives Project (DPIP), implemented in the second largest state in India. In particular, it examines the impact on allocation of Below Poverty Line (BPL) cards that are targeted towards the most...

This paper estimates a structural model of household behavior in the presence of cash transfers to recover the amount of resources allocated to men, women, and children. Using data from Ecuador, I find that there are important intra-household inequalities, but the transfer induces a...

Evidence on the effectiveness of workfare as an anti-poverty program in developing countries is weak compared with the relatively well-established role of public works during economic crisis as a social safety net. This paper contributes to evidence building by examining the impact of a...

Information campaigns aimed at empowering the poor often fall short of meeting their desired aims. We study literacy's role in determining their efficacy. First, exploiting an RD design, we show that receipt of information increased household rice receipts by 30 percentage points. Second, we...

This paper estimates a structural model of household behavior in the presence of cash transfers to recover the amount of resources allocated to men, women, and children. Using data from Ecuador, I find that there are important intra-household inequalities, but the transfer produces resource...

Aid programs in developing countries are likely to affect all households living in the treated areas, both eligible and non-eligible ones. Studies that focus on the treatment effect on the treated may fail to capture important spillover effects. We exploit the unique design of an aid program's...

Evidence on the effectiveness of workfare as an anti-poverty program in developing countries is weak compared with the relatively well-established role of public works during economic crisis as a social safety net. This paper contributes to evidence building by examining the impact of a...