The Seasonal Worker Program (SWP), which was informed by the Pacific Seasonal Worker Pilot Scheme (PSWPS), represents the first effort by an Australian government to explicitly open low-skilled work opportunities to Pacific Islanders since Federation. The PSWPS was largely modelled on the...

This paper provides an overview of issues relating to aid effectiveness. It argues that it is impossible to give a definitive answer to the question of whether aid is effective, and that it is more useful to ask what can be done to make aid more effective. The paper then groups the various...

An important public policy question is whether improved targeting of public spending will necessarily result in more or more cost-effective poverty reduction. In an important and influential study, Ravallion (2009) shows that targeting measures perform poorly as indicators of the poverty impact...

Developing Asia is the driver of today's emissions intensive global economy. As the principle source of future emissions, the region is critical to the task of global climate change mitigation. Reflecting this global reality and a range of related domestic issues, the governments of the People's...

Recently, the direct distribution of natural resource wealth through cash transfers (“resources-to-cash”) has been recommended to help avoid the resource curse. Mongolia is perhaps the only developing country that has actually introduced a resources-to-cash scheme. While the scheme has...