This paper evaluates the effect of AIDS-related mortality on per-capita incomes of surviving household members, using a large nationally representative sample of rural households from Zambia. To minimize selection bias that may arise because AIDS is likely to be the endogenous outcome of...

Este documento proporciona un recuento de la evolución de la pobreza y la desigualdad durante el ajuste en Bolivia, cubriendo el período 1985-99. La pobreza urbana declinó en cierto grado luego de la fase inicial que siguió a la hiperinflación en 1985. Una evolución similar del ingreso per...

This paper reviews Bolivia's economic and social development over the period 1985-99, and investigates the country's future prospects for pro-poor growth using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model. It turns out that past economic growth cannot be called pro-poor. Model simulations show...

The prospects for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) look bad in various developing countries, notably in Sub-Saharan Africa. To turn the tide, recent reports by the UN Millennium Project and the Commission for Africa issued urgent calls to increase official development aid...

This paper analyzes possible justifications for government interventions in health and old age insurance and illustrates the theoretical considerations by the case of Chile where a comprehensive social sector reform took place in the 1980s. It is shown that health insurances can suffer from...

This paper deals with the question of whether the discrimination against agriculture that prevailed in Sub-Saharan Africa until the early 1980s has continued to characterize the region despite the widespread adoption of structural adjustment programs. The evolution of both direct interventions...

Policies and external shocks affecting agriculture, the main source of income for rural households, can be expected to have a significant impact on poverty. This paper studies the case of Uganda. Throughout the 1990s, more than 90 percent of its poor lived in rural areas and, during the same...