Benefit incidence analysis is an extremely popular tool to assess the distribution of benefits from government expenditure in developing countries, particularly in the social sectors. The analysis describes the welfare impact of public spending on groups of people or households, typically along...

The creation of non-contributory pension schemes is becoming increasingly common as countries struggle to reduce poverty. Drawing on data from Mexico's Adultos Mayores Program (Older Adults Program) -- a cash transfer scheme aimed at rural adults over 70 years of age -- we evaluate the effects...

Do individuals trust experts' advice? Does the sector represented by these experts matter for trust and compliance? Do individuals prefer the public or the private sector for large-scale responses to events such as the pandemic? We answer these questions by means of a large-scale survey on a...

Through changing the connection between insurance and employment, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has affected people's incentives to obtain education. We employ a triple-difference strategy comparing counties with different levels of uninsurance pre-ACA and in states with different Medicaid...

Family Rewards represents the first test of a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program in the U.S., offering families incentives for children's education, family preventive health care and parents' work and training. Using a randomized controlled trial, we find that the program led to substantial...

Exposure to extreme shocks in early life is found to have lasting impact in adulthood. Exploiting the variation in exposure measured by age and intensity of earthquake, we evaluate the impact of a 7.7 MW earthquake in Gujarat, India, on the health stock of children who were in utero or below...

The relationship between income and health is not fully understood. In theory, income could not only provide access to preventive care and a healthy lifestyle that can help to prevent disease, but also provide access to unhealthy consumption goods such as tobacco and alcohol which raise the risk...

In more than half of U.S. states over the past two decades, the implementation of merit aid programs has dramatically reduced net tuition expenses for college-bound students who attend in-state colleges. Although the intention of these programs was to improve access to enrollment for...

How can the world reach herd immunity against COVID-19 before the second anniversary of the pandemic, or March 2022? A study of vaccine demand and supply answers this question. A target of vaccinating 60 percent of the population in each country by March 2022 is likely sufficient to achieve...

How much of the income-based gaps in cognitive ability and academic achievement could be closed by a two-year, center-based early childhood education intervention? Data from the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP), which randomly assigned treatment to low birth weight children from both...