Output collapses, and crises are a fact of life. Severe economic downturns occur periodically, and have grave consequences on the poor. The authors propose a new measurement for economic downside risk, and severity: Growth at risk. Similar to the concept of Value at Risk in finance, Growth at...

Seguro Popular was introduced in 2002 to provide health insurance to the 50 million Mexicans without Social Security. This paper tests whether the program has had unintended consequences, distorting workers'incentives to operate in the informal sector. The analysis examines the impact of Seguro...

Reinikka and Svensson exploit a unique micro-level data set on primary health care facilities in Uganda to address the question: What motivates religious not-for-profit (RNP) health care providers? The authors use two approaches to identify whether an altruistic (religious) effect exists in the...

The authors study complex interactions between gender and poverty in postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina. The goal of their analysis is to uncover how a spectrum of gender differentials at different parts of the life cycle varies across income groups. Using the data from the 2001 Bosniaand...

Numerous analysts have linked volunteering and participation to positive economic and political outcomes. The author uses the 1994 Peru Living Standards Measurement Survey to analyze volunteering patterns in rural Peru. He finds that volunteers in rural Peru have a high opportunity cost of time....

The authors use the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey to examine the gender dimensions of public works. They use three rounds of a panel conducted in 1994-95 to explore the determinants of participation in, days worked, wages, and earnings from wage labor, food-for-work (FFW), and...

As Latin American and the Caribbean countries face rapid aging transitions, the economic contribution of older workers will need to be strengthened. This paper uses household data from Brazil and Mexico to characterize labor market behavior of older workers, such as participation, sectoral and...

This paper examines the channels through which alternative property rights institutions affect investment. These institutions are defined by a society's enforced laws, regulations, governance mechanisms and norms concerning the use of resources. A transaction cost framework is used to analyze...

The need for land-related investment to ensure sustainable land management and increase productivity of land use is widely recognized. However, there is little rigorous evidence on the effects of property rights for increasing agricultural productivity and contributing toward poverty reduction...

Although transfer of agricultural land ownership through land reform had positive impacts on productivity, investment, and political empowerment in many cases, institutional arrangements in West Bengal -- which made tenancy heritable and imposed a prohibition on subleasing -- imply that early...