Is public safety of less concern to poor people? What about people in poor areas? How is demand for public safety affected by income inequality? Is there a self-correcting mechanism whereby higher crime increases demand for public safety?Is public safety of less concern to poor people? What...

Subjective poverty lines - based on the self-assessed adequacy of a family's food, housing, and clothing - accord closely on average with independent objective poverty lines. There are notable differences, however, when geographic and demographic poverty profiles are constructed. Pradhan and...

In this paper we estimate the impact of road development on household welfare in rural Papua New Guinea over the period between 1996 and 2010, using two cross-sectional household surveys and corresponding road maps. To deal with endogenous placement of road infrastructure programs we employ a...

The authors examine the effects of the introduction of Vietnam's health insurance (VHI) program on health outcomes, health care utilization, and non-medical household consumption. The use of panel data collected before and after the insurance program's introduction allows them to eliminate any...

This study evaluates the effect of four randomized interventions aimed at strengthening school committees, and subsequently improving learning outcomes, in public primary schools in Indonesia. All study schools were randomly allocated to either a control group receiving no intervention, or to...

We examine the marginal effects of decentralized public health spending by incorporating estimates of behavioural responses to changes in public health spending through benefit incidence analysis. The analysis is based on a panel dataset of 207 Indonesian districts over a 4-year period from 2001...

We evaluate, using a randomized trial, two school-based financial literacy education programs in government-run primary and junior high schools in Ghana. One program integrated financial and social education, whereas the second program only offered financial education. Both programs included a...

This paper presents evidence on the cost-effectiveness of early childhood education pathways in rural Indonesia. It documents the existence of substantial differences in school readiness between 6 to 9 year old children. Using detailed enrollment histories, it unpacks whether and how early...

This paper presents evidence on the cost-effectiveness of early childhood education pathways in rural Indonesia. It documents the existence of substantial differences in school readiness between 6 to 9 year old children. Using detailed enrollment histories, it unpacks whether and how early...

Public action to prevent crime is often driven by concerns about public safety. But what generates those concerns? Is it crime, or something else? Using survey data for Brazil, we find that the desire for greater public safety has a positive own-income effect, but a negative neighborhood-income...