Extensive global evidence suggests that conditional cash transfers (CCTs) encourage long-term investment in human capital by poor households. However, CCTs also have the potential to distort incentives for investment among children. If only some children in the household are monitored/subsidized...

Extensive global evidence suggests that conditional cash transfers (CCTs) encourage long-terminvestment in human capital by poor households. However, CCTs also have the potential to distortincentives for investment among children. If only some children in the household are monitored/subsidized...

Using administrative data from the urban Mexican Oportunidades program, this paper analyzes why poor households choose less education for their children, even when offered financial compensation for school attendance. Each school year, half of recipients forgo income for which they are eligible...

This paper investigates whether unconditional cash transfers can keep refugee children in school and out of work. We raise this question in the unique context of Turkey, which hosts the world's largest refugee population (including 3.6 million Syrians). Refugees in Turkey are supported by the...

This paper investigates whether unconditional cash transfers can keep refugee children in school and out of work. We raise this question in the unique context of Turkey, which hosts the world's largest refugee population (including 3.6 million Syrians). Refugees in Turkey are supported by the...

We use a comparative approach to study the incentives provided by different types of compensation contracts, and their valuation by risk averse managers, in a fairly general setting. We show that concave contracts tend to provide more incentives to risk averse managers, while convex contracts...

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have spread worldwide as a new form of social assistance for the poor. Previous evaluations of CCT programs focus mainly on rural settings, and little is known about their effects in urban areas. This paper studies the short-term (one and two-year)...

Evaluation of Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programmes in a developing country context indicates a positive impact on increasing enrollment but finds mixed evidence on improving learning outcomes. Using representative rural household survey data, we evaluated one of the largest CCT programmes...

Early-tracking systems naturally divide many classes of 11 years old students into two groups: students preparing for exams to enter better schools and everyone else, who decide not to compete for selective schools. Utilizing TIMSS data and a follow-up study in the Czech Republic, which has an...

How do institutions and peer groups shape skills? We exploit a universal free-choice reform signaling less importance of advanced math-science in high school. We show how it amplified the fall in math-science skills and triggered gender convergence as boys crowded-in the free-choice reform. We...