The performance of the Simple Poverty Scorecard is compared against the performance of established regression-based estimators. All estimates are benchmarked against observed poverty status based on household expenditure (or income) data from household socioeconomic surveys that span nearly a...

This paper summarizes the results of the impact evaluation of the Access to Information pilot project on empowerment of citizens in poor municipalities in the Dominican Republic. Among the dimensions of empowerment investigated are civic knowledge, awareness and use of the right to information,...

This paper takes advantage of the exogenous phasing of direct elections in districts and applies the double-difference estimator to measure impacts on (i) human development outcomes and (ii) the pattern of public spending and revenue generation at the district level. The analysis reveals that...

Between 2005 and 2015 the population living in poverty decreased substantially due to increased government revenues from high oil prices and the expansionary spending that accompanied these revenues. However, despite the recent substantial reduction in poverty, results commensurate with its...

When shocks strike they have an immediate and direct impact on life, income, and assets.Two strands of literature can be usefully brought together to generate some initial indicative estimates of the timing of a shock’s impacts, and thus the likely benefit of acting early to mitigate these...

This note summarizes the findings of the analysis carried out regarding the poverty and inequality impacts of the ongoing economic crisis in Brazil in 2016 and 2017. The first objective is to get an estimate of the extent to which the deteriorating macroeconomic conditions and shrinking labor...

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs aim to alleviate poverty through monetary and in-kind benefits, as well as reduce future levels of poverty by encouraging investments in education, health, and nutrition. The success of CCT programs at reducing poverty depends on whether, and the extent...

Brazil's inequalities in welfare and poverty across and within regions can be accounted for by differences in household attributes and returns to those attributes. This paper uses Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions at the mean as well as at different quantiles of welfare distributions on regionally...

The authors use the unique experimental design of the Food Support Program (Programa Apoyo Alimentario) to analyze in-kind and cash transfers in the poor rural areas of southern states of Mexico. They compare the impacts of monthly in-kind and cash transfers of equivalent value (mean share 11.5...