Abstract Analysis of labour informality is very relevant in Latin America. More than half of all workers in the region are employed in informal activities, mainly as ownaccount workers or wage earners in small enterprises. A similar percentage of people work in jobs not registered in the social...

Abstract The paper discusses the rise of poverty and poverty reduction in the political and policy agenda in Latin America, reflected inter alia in the growth of social assistance. It identifies and discusses two main explanations offered in the literature: democratisation and left partisan...

In Bangladesh, urban poverty is neglected in research, policy and action on poverty reduction. This paper explores the underlying foundations for this relative neglect, including national identity and image, the political economy of urban poverty, and the structuring of knowledge creation. It...

Using three comparable national representative household surveys for China in 1988, 1995 and 2002, this paper provides micro level evidence of a policy of absolute regressive taxation and an inverted welfare system. It reviews the economic effects of taxes and subsides and shows that a dual and...

This paper provides a chronological account of the evolution of the concept and policy of reproductive health and its initial entry, and subsequent exclusion, from UN declarations. In the 1990s effective lobbying by sexual and reproductive rights activists established reproductive health for all...

Rising food prices played an important role in the acceleration of inflation across Asia and the Pacific region during 2007 and the early months of 2008. Not only is food price inflation the most regressive of all taxes, it also leads to lower growth and accentuation of income inequality....

The paper examines local economy effects of social transfers, by focusing on food consumption and asset holdings of non-eligible households in rural Mexico following the introduction of PROGRESA in 1997. The quasi-experimental nature of the evaluation data collected for the purposes of...

This paper reviews the main challenges and opportunities for incorporating mixed method approaches into research and evaluation on the effectiveness and impacts of international development. It draws on the authors’ experience over several decades working in both academia and with a wide range...

Despite growing international interest with social protection, little is known about the forms of politics that tend to underpin - and emerge from - such interventions. For example, under what conditions do governments and political elites implement and sustain social protection policies? How...

Social movements have been viewed as vehicles through which the concerns of poor and marginalised groups are given greater visibility within civil society, lauded for being the means to achieve local empowerment and citizen activism, and seen as essential in holding the state to account and...