This study examines trends in school dropout at the upper secondary education level across Latin America over the past two decades, and attempts to identify factors influencing these rates. The methodology contributes to the existing literature by employing repeated cross sections of data to...

The authors review the implications for social policy in developing countries of two major justifications for fertility reduction: the externality argument and the income redistribution argument. First they set out the arguments. In terms of how policy affects the poor, they show that the...

The authors delineate two different algorithms for the purchase of AIDS vaccines, to show how differences in policy objectives can greatly affect projections of the number of courses of vaccine that will be needed. They consider a hypothetical vaccine costing ten dollars to produce, and offering...

By the early 1960s, Colombia was one of the fastest growing countries in the world. With a total fertility rate of seven children per woman and a rapidly declining mortality, its population was growing at a rate that would double in size every 22 years. But from the years 1973 - 1985 the...

The authors present a non-altruistic model of demand for children, in the presence of uncertainty about children's survival. Children are seen as assets, as they provide help during old age. If certain conditions are met, both the financial market, and the family network are used to transfer...

Bangladesh has experienced the largest mass poisoning of a population in history owing to contamination of groundwater with naturally occurring inorganic arsenic. Continuous drinking of such metal-contaminated water is highly cancerous; prolonged drinking of such water risks developing diseases...

Economic analyses of development projects and policies often involve assigning an economic value to changes in the risk of loss of human life. A typical term used in the economic analyses is the value of statistical life, which reflects the aggregation of individuals'willingness to pay for fatal...

This study provides estimates of social and financial costs of environmental damage in India from three pollution damage categories: (i) urban air pollution; (ii) inadequate water supply, poor sanitation, and hygiene; and (iii) indoor air pollution. It also provides estimates based on three...

The literature is reviewed on the relationships between population, poverty, and climate change. While developed countries are largely responsible for global warming, the brunt of the fallout will be borne by the developing world, in lower agricultural output, poorer health, and more frequent...

Breaking the intergenerational transmission of poverty requires far-reaching actions in the education sector. Widespread poverty affects both students'performance and their availability to attend school. Low-quality education leads to low income, which in turn perpetuates poverty. Furthermore,...