HIV-prevention strategies have yielded only limited success so far in slowing down the AIDS epidemic. This paper examines novel intervention strategies that use incentives to discourage risky sexual behaviors. Widely-adopted conditional cash transfer programs that offer payments conditioning on...

About half of Latin America’s youth are considered"at risk,"meaning that they engage in or are at risk of engaging in risky behaviors that are detrimental to their own development and to the well-being of their societies. While child psychologists identify many factors that may cause some...

This paper analyzes complementarities between different Millennium Development Goals, focusing on child mortality and how it is influenced by progress in the other goals, in particular two goals related to the expansion of female education: universal primary education and gender equality in...

Paying for performance (P4P) provides financial incentives for providers to increase the use and quality of care. P4P can affect health care by providing incentives for providers to put more effort into specific activities, and by increasing the amount of resources available to finance the...

This study constructs three indices to measure how well Brazil's young people are surviving their transition to adulthood. Youth development is difficult to quantify because of the multi-dimensionality of youth behavior. Most monitoring use individual indicators in specific sectors, making it...

A growing number of developing countries have introduced conditional cash transfer programs that provide money to poor families with certain contingencies attached - such as requiring school attendance or regular immunization and health check-ups. As the popularity of conditional cash transfer...

There is an extensive literature on violent conflicts such as the 1994 Rwandan genocide, but few papers examine the profiles of victims and perpetrators, or more broadly the micro-level dynamics of widespread violence. This paper studies the demographic consequences of the Rwandan genocide and...

Using an extensive survey that addresses risk factors faced by the population in the shantytowns (favelas) of Fortaleza, Brazil, the aim of this paper is to study risk-taking behavior by youth, focusing on drug use and teenage pregnancy. The paper analyzes the impact of factors such as exposure...

Argentina's Plan Nacer provides insurance for maternal and child health care to uninsured families. The program allocates funding to provinces based on enrollment of beneficiaries and adds performance incentives based on indicators of the use and quality of maternal and child health care...

Adolescence is a demanding and critical period in life. Failure to meet certain developmental milestones can have serious short- and long-term implications for the individual and society at large. This note provides an overview of how economic shocks can affect adolescent development, and how...