Since 1998, housing policies in urban China have gone through a series of reforms that transformed housing allocation from a centralized welfare housing system to a market-oriented housing system. Through the process welfare dwelling residents are eligible to purchase their existing dwelling at...

We use the responses of a representative sample of Dutch households to survey questions that ask how much their consumption would change in response to unexpected, permanent, positive or negative shocks to their home value. The average MPC is in the 2.1-4.7% range, in line with econometric...

Reference price regimes for prescription drugs are usually implemented with the aim of curbing public expenditure with pharmaceuticals, induce drug substitution from branded to generics drugs and enhance competition. In these systems, patients co-pay the difference between the drug's pharmacy...

India has the world's biggest and arguably most aggressive employment-based affirmative action policy for minorities. This paper exploits the institutional features of a federally mandated employment quota policy to examine its causal impact on the economic lives of the two distinct minority...

Studies by psychologists, sociologists, and economists indicate that increases in incomes beyond about US$4,000 are not related to happiness nor significantly with the objective quality-of-life indicators (which increase with scientific and technological breakthroughs at the global level). Yet...

This paper reviews public expenditure in Lithuania to identify areas where deeper structural reforms may be warranted to improve spending efficiency and contain future spending pressures. The analysis benchmarks spending in Lithuania against other European countries focusing on spending levels,...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate dynamic food demand in urban China, with use of a complete dynamic demand system - DLES-LA/DAIDS, which pushes forward the techniques of demand analysis. Design/methodology/approach – We employ a transitionary demand process and develop a...

Although microfinance institutions across the world are moving from group lending towards individual lending, this strategic shift is not substantiated by sufficient empirical evidence on the impact of both types of lending on borrowers. We present such evidence from a randomised field...

Although microfinance institutions across the world are moving from group lending towards individual lending, this strategic shift is not substantiated by sufficient empirical evidence on the impact of both types of lending on borrowers. We present such evidence from a randomised field...

This paper reports the results from a randomized evaluation of a microcredit program introduced in rural areas of Morocco starting in 2006 by Al Amana, the country's largest microfinance institution. Al Amana was the only MFI operating in the study areas during the evaluation period. Thirteen...