Over the period 1984 to 1987, a major liberalization of restrictive trade policies was implemented in the Moroccan manufacturing sector. The level of imports changed across different industries according to each industryamp;apos;s degree of liberalization. The paper focuses on exploring the...

The apparently inexorable rise in the proportion of quot;missing girlsquot; in much of East and South Asia has attracted much attention amongst researchers and policy-makers. An encouraging trend was suggested by the case of South Korea, where child sex ratios were the highest in Asia but peaked...

Despite efforts to mandate and finance local governments'provision of environmental sanitation services, outcomes remain poor in the villages surveyed in the four South Indian states. The analysis indicates some key issues that appear to hinder improvements in sanitation. Local politicians tend...

China has a large deficit of females, and public policies have sought to reduce the son preference that is widely believed to cause this. Recently a study has suggested that up to 75 percent of this deficit is attributable to hepatitis B infection, indicating that immunization programs should...

For years, South Korea presented the puzzling phenomenon of steeply rising sex ratios at birth despite rapid development, including in women's education and formal employment. This paper shows that son preference decreased in response to development, but its manifestation continued until the...

Das Gupta, Khaleghian, and Sarwal study the impact of governance and administrative factors on communicable disease prevention in the Indian state of Karnataka using survey data from administrators, frontline workers, and elected local representatives. They identify a number of key constraints...

States can do much to tap community-level energies and resources for development if they seek to interact more synergistically with local communities. The broader spin-off is creating a developmental society and polity. Using case studies from Asia and Latin America, Das Gupta, Granvoinnet, and...

Son preference has persisted in the face of sweeping economic and social changes in China, India, and the Republic of Korea. The authors attribute this to their similar family systems, which generate strong disincentives to raise daughters while valuing adult women's contributions to the...

The authors provide an overview of how different approaches to improving public sector management relate to so-called core or essential public health functions, such as disease surveillance, health education, monitoring and evaluation, workforce development, enforcement of public health laws and...

India has relatively poor health outcomes, despite having a well-developed administrative system, good technical skills in many fields, and an extensive network of public health institutions for research, training, and diagnostics. This suggests that the health system may be misdirecting its...