This paper surveys the existing literature on the determinants of household savings and credit in developing countries and examines the ways in which macro-level policies might impact on household financial behaviour.

Although the theoretical trade-off between the quantity and quality of children is well-established, empirical evidence supporting such a causal relationship is limited. Moreover, empirical studies that have been undertaken typically focus on education as a measure of child quality and have been...

India's child stunting rate is among the highest in the world, exceeding that of many poorer African countries. In this paper, we analyze data for over 174,000 Indian and Sub-Saharan African children to show that Indian firstborns are taller than African firstborns; the Indian height...

This paper provides evidence on household responses to the relaxation of one barrier constraining adoption of health practices - lack of information - in a resource constrained setting. It examines the effects of a randomized intervention in Malawi which provides mothers with information on...

India's child stunting rate is among the highest in the world, exceeding that of many poorer African countries. In this paper, we analyze data for over 174,000 Indian and Sub-Saharan African children to show that Indian firstborns are taller than African firstborns; the Indian height...

Governments provide public information about economic conditions to reduce information imperfections and facilitate efficient allocation of resources. Do households in developing countries rely on public signals to inform themselves about market conditions? To identify the importance of public...

In 2007, seeking to increase female labor force participation and more generally ease burdens on working women, the Mexican government introduced an enormous expansion of a child care program: Estancias Infantiles para Apoyar a Madres Trabajadoras (EI). EI covers 90 percent approximately of the...

This paper presents a model of the determinants of urban to rural remittances in developing countries. While the literature on economic development is very rich in explaining migration behaviour, there is no formal theory of how remittances are determined. The framework here is similar to one in...

This paper studies the role played by caste, education and other social and economic attributes in arranged marriages among middle-class Indians. We use a unique data set on individuals who placed matrimonial advertisements in a major newspaper, the responses they received, how they ranked them,...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in the 'World Bank Economic Review', 2007, 21, 1-20.<p> There has been a revival of interest in the effect of risk on economic growth. We quantify both ex ante and ex post effects of risk using a stochastic version of the Ramsey model. We develop a...</p>