This paper argues that the Bank should give renewed priority to population matters and accelerate the current upward trend in lending for family planning programs in the 1990s. It is timely for two reasons. First, the need for bank action in population will increase in the 1990s as a result of...

Empirical studies on health at a disaggregate level-by socioeconomic group or geographic location-can provide useful information for designing poverty-focused interventions. Using Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data, the author investigates the determinants of health outcomes in low-income...

This paper analyzes the effects of education, health and social security on fertility in developing countries. Spending on education does not necessarily reduce fertility. For example, with small amounts of education fertility tends to increase before falling off at the level of completed...

By international standards, and given its relatively low per capita income, Vietnam has achieved substantial reductions in, and low levels of, infant and under-five mortality. The authors review existing evidence and provide new evidence on whether, under the economic liberalization program...

Oral rehydration therapy is the key low-cost child survival intervention used to deal with diarrheal illness in developing countries. The existence of a low-cost, highly efficacious technological fix (oral rehydration salts) for the life-threatening dehydration that accompanies diarrhea provided...

The AIDS epidemic is dramatically increasing mortality of adults in many Sub-Saharan African countries, with potentially severe consequences for surviving family members. Until now, most of these impacts had not been quantified. The authors examine the impact of adult mortality in Tanzania on...

To a great extent, fertility decline in Tunisia can be explained by the rise in the age at which women marry, probably because they are better educated and because social legislation has given them more rights. A second major factor in fertility decline was the increased use of contraception....

This paper assesses the extent to which provider payment mechanisms can help developing countries address their leading health care problems. It first identifies four key problems in the health care systems in developing countries: 1) public facilities, which provide the bulk of secondary and...

The author studies the persistence of inequality and inefficient governance in a physical capital accumulation model with perfect information, missing credit markets, and endogenous barriers to entry. When access to investment opportunities is regulated, rent-seeking entrepreneurs form...

The purpose of this paper is to provide a quick reference on the prevalence of protein-energy malnutrition by presenting available weight-for-age data for children in developing countries. These country data are arranged in tables by area of the world and by World Bank-designated income groups....