Although theoretical models make distinct predictions about the relationship between financial sector development and income inequality, little empirical research has been conducted to compare their relative explanatory power. The authors examine the relation between financial intermediary...

This paper contains abstracts of Policy Research Working Paper series Numbers 1894-1935.

The author examines public economics rationales for public intervention in health insurance markets, draws on the literature of organizational design to examine alternative intervention strategies, and considers health insurance reforms in four Latin American countries -- Argentina, Brazil,...

This paper contains a numerical listing of working papers produced by the Policy, Planning, and External Affairs Complex. Each citation contains a brief abstract, and the contactpoint for the paper.

Few studies have tried to measure how households in a developing country save from each of the different income sources at their disposal. To help fill that gap, the Author uses five-year panel data to examine how households in rural Pakistan save from each of the seven separate sources of...

Calculations of marginal welfare effects suggest that agricultural development has had important positive effects on national welfare, especially in developing countries. Latin American and Caribbean countries have also benefited from agricultural growth, but non-agricultural production has had...

In theory, it is possible that the persistent poverty that has emerged in many transition economies, is attributable to underlying, non-convexities in the dynamics of household incomes - such that a vulnerable household will never recover from a sufficiently large, but short-lived shock to its...

Economists have criticized regulations that impose uniform environmental standards on plants that may face different marginal abatement costs and damage functions. Such critics ignore the difference in standard implementation across plants, giving rise to nonuniform standards. The authors...

Many countries compete against one another in attracting foreign investors by offering ever more generous incentive packages and justifying their actions with the productivity gains that are expected to accrue to domestic producers from knowledge externalities generated by foreign affiliates....

The authors discuss when and how to adjust expenditures derived from household surveys to reflect the consumption of basic services. They discuss simple adjustment methods for markets that are subsidized, rationed, or subject to increasing marginal tariff pricing. Using Ecuador as an example,...