In the decade before the Great Famine, Ireland experienced a boom in microfinance institutions (MFIs). Taking a social enterprise perspective, this paper analyses the institutional context for this boom. It finds evidence linking the boom in MFIs to the development, via the introduction of the...

Existing well-being measurement initiatives in the region, such as the Quality of Life Indicators in Korea, Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Index and Quality of Life Index in the Philippines, shed some insight on dimensions that should be considered for measuring well-being beyond GDP in...

Thanks to the large investment of official data producers in OECD countries, measures of subjective well-being have become increasingly robust and meaningful from a policy perspective. In the ten years since the OECD published its Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being, the inclusion of...

Despite the fact that 30 percent of opioid overdoses also involve a benzodiazepine, there is little policy guidance on how to curb concurrent misuse and even less evidence on how changes to co-prescribing practices can affect patients' economic trajectories. In 2012, Austria restricted access to...

Despite the fact that 30 percent of opioid overdoses also involve a benzodiazepine, there is little policy guidance on how to curb concurrent misuse and even less evidence on how changes to co-prescribing practices can affect patients' economic trajectories. In 2012, Austria restricted access to...

We study the role of the administrative design of energy subsidy programs aimed at encouraging households' transition to cleaner energy sources. Our context is the universal subsidy for clean cooking gas (LPG) in India - households first purchase LPG at the market price (over-the-counter) and...

We study two early childhood programs in The Gambia for children between 0 and 3 years of age. The basic version of the program, called Baby Friendly Community Initiative (BFCI), provides parents with child health and nutrition information delivered through home visits and community meetings. A...

We use Bayesian meta-analysis methods to estimate the impact of unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) on twelve primary outcomes from 114 studies of 72 UCT programs in middle and low income countries. Cash transfers generate strong and positive average treatment effects on ten of thirteen...

This article presents an analytical overview and defines the essence of the concept “social policy” in the context of its relation to the economy. The author of the article has developed a system of indicators to measure the impact of social policy and proposed a technique for assessing its...