Since its creation in 1991, the Peruvian Social Fund (FONCODES) has spent about US$570 million funding micro-projects throughout Peru. Many of these projects have involved building and renovating school facilities. The authors analyze the targeting and impact of FONCODES investments in the...

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) play an increasingly important role in development assistance, but little systematic evidence is available about their objectives and choices in developing countries. Gauri and Fruttero develop two stylized accounts of NGO motivation: one in which donor...

Gauri analyzes contemporary rights-based and economic approaches to health care and education in developing countries. He assesses the foundations and uses of social rights in development, outlines an economic approach to improving health and education services, and then highlights the...

Voucher programs consist of three simultaneous reforms: (1) allowing parents to choose schools, (2) creating intense incentives for schools to increase enrollment, and (3) granting schools management autonomy to respond to demand. As a result, voucher advocates and critics tend to talk past each...

The authors use cross-national social, political, economic, and institutional data to explain why some countries have stronger immunization programs than others, as measured by diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) and measles vaccine coverage rates and the adoption of the hepatitis B vaccine....

Theoretical accounts of compliance with court orders emphasize the importance of transparency. Most empirical studies of compliance center on high profile political cases, largely ignoring the high-volume, quotidian claims against the state for basic services that constitute the largest share of...

A large literature focuses on the biases of individuals and consumers, as well as "nudges" and other policies that can address those biases. Although policy decisions are often more consequential than those of individual consumers, there is a dearth of studies on the biases of policy...

Optimism about the use of laws, constitutions, and rights to achieve social change has never been higher among practitioners. But the academic literature is skeptical that courts can direct resources toward the poor. This paper develops a nuanced account in which not all courts are the same....