Whether user fees for basic health services should be charged or abolished for the poor has recently been debated. This study examines the impact on child health status of removing user fees in South Africa. Our main innovation is to exploit plausibly exogenous variation in access to free...

GOOD HEALTH IS A CRUCIAL PART OF WELL-BEING BUT SPENDING ON HEALTH CAN BE JUSTIFIED ON ECONOMIC GROUNDS. THE GOAL OF REDUCING POVERTY PROVIDES A DIFFERENT BUT EQUALLY POWERFUL CASE FOR HEALTH INVESTMENTS. HOWEVER, IF POLICYMAKERS ARE TO ACCELERATE THE SUBSTANTIAL HEALTH GAINS OF RECENT DECADES,...

Good health is a crucial part of well-being but spending on health can be justified on economic grounds. The goal of reducing poverty provides a different but equally powerful case for health investments. However, if policymakers are to accelerate the substantial health gains of recent decades,...

This paper investigates the potential impact of extended school days in reducing teenage fertility. We study the Jornada Escolar Extendida program, which doubled the school-day length from 4 to 8 hours in the Dominican Republic, and exploit the geographic and time variation induced by its...

We report an experiment in 3,000 villages that tested whether incentives improve aid efficacy. Villages received block grants for maternal and child health and education that incorporated relative performance incentives. Subdistricts were randomized into incentives, an otherwise identical...