This book investigates trends in skills demand and supply over the past two decades for insights into ways to build (and use) the critical skills needed to sustain competitiveness of the Philippine economy. Part one of the book investigates trends in demand for skills in the country overall and...

In a context of increased primary school enrollment rates, secondary education is appearing as the next big challenge for Latin American and East Asian countries. This report seeks to undertake a detailed diagnostic of secondary education in these two regions, understand some of the main...

This paper analyzes the level and trends in inequality of opportunity among Egyptian children during the 2000s. The analysis uses severall tools, including comparison of the distributions of early risks and outcomes across circumstance groups; estimation of the human opportunity index;...

Rates of return to investments in schooling have been estimated since the late 1950s. In the 60-plus year history of such estimates, there have been several attempts to synthesize the empirical results to ascertain patterns. This paper presents comparable estimates, as well as a database, that...

Female labor participation in the Arab world is low compared with the level of economic development of Arab countries. Beyond anecdotal evidence and cross-country studies, there is little evidence on what could explain this phenomenon. This paper uses the richest set of panel data available for...

A textbook provision program in Sierra Leone demonstrates how volatility in the flow of government-provided learning inputs to schools can induce storage of these inputs by school administrators to smooth future consumption. This process in turn leads to low current utilization of inputs for...

Understanding the trade-offs in improving the precision of agricultural measures through survey design is crucial. Yet, standard indicators used to determine program effectiveness may be flawed and at a differential rate for men and women. The authors use a household survey from Mozambique to...

There is an increasing recognition that investment in human development at an earlier age can have a significant impact on the lifetime earnings capacity of an individual. This notion is the basis for the popularity of conditional cash transfer programs to help boost child health and education...

This study examines the causes and effects of low enrollment and high dropout rates at the upper secondary level in Mexico, where upper secondary completion rates are well below those of other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries and the regional average. Through a...

A review of rigorous evaluations of interventions that seek to empower women economically shows that the same class of interventions has significantly different outcomes depending on the client. Capital alone, as a small cash loan or grant, is not sufficient to grow women-owned subsistence-level...