Is effective social protection an investment with long-term benefits? Does inequality impede growth? Household panel data on incomes in rural China offer some answers. Theoretical work has shown that nonlinear dynamics in household incomes can yield poverty traps and distribution-dependent...

August 2001Children's health improves on average as a result of policy interventions that expand access to piped water. However, the gains largely bypass children in poor and poorly educated families.The effects of public investments aimed at directly improving children's health are...