School closures during the covid-19 pandemic disrupted learning among students globally, with concerns for long-term impacts on adolescent well-being and likely differential effects for boys versus girls...
This paper uses a set of randomized experiments to examine the impact of a group business development program implemented by the Tanzanian government, along with a set of complementary training and cash...
This note examines the effects of COVID-19 and subsequent economic and educational disruptions on adolescent well-being in Bangladesh. The analysis is based on data from 2,095 in-school adolescents aged...
The basic economic model of labor supply has a very clear prediction of what should be expected when an adult receives an unexpected cash windfall: they should work less and earn less. This intuition underlies...
Infectious diseases were responsible for the largest global burden of premature death and disability until the end of the twentieth century, when that distinction passed to noncommunicable diseases. Over...
This study examines the medium-term effects of a two-year cash transfer program targeted to adolescent girls and young women. Significant declines in HIV prevalence, teen pregnancy, and early marriage...
The World Bank Economic Review is a professional journal used for the dissemination of research in development economics broadly relevant to the development profession and to the World Bank in pursuing...
An extensive multi-disciplinary literature examines the effects of learning one's HIV status on subsequent risky sexual behaviors. However, many of these studies rely on non-experimental designs; use self-reported...
This paper formalizes the design of experiments intended specifically to study spillover effects. By first randomizing the intensity of treatment within clusters and then randomly assigning individual...
This brief summarizes the results of a gender impact evaluation study, entitled The short-term impacts of a schooling conditional cash transfer program on the sexual behavior of young women, conducted...
This brief summarizes the income shocks and adolescent mental health in Malawi. Monthly transfers were made from 2008 to the end of 2009; in total the intervention lasted two years. The author investigates...
This brief summarizes the results of a gender impact evaluation study, entitled Cash or condition evidence from a cash transfer experiment, conducted from 2008 to the end of 2009 in Malawi. The study observed...
Despite their explicit focus on reaching the poor, many community driven development (CDD) initiatives are only partially successful in targeting spending towards them. This paper examines Tanzania's flagship...
Despite their explicit focus on reaching the poor, many community driven development (CDD) projects have been found to be only mildly pro-poor in their funding allocations. This paper presents evidence...
Health and income are strongly correlated both within and across countries, yet the extent to which improvements in income have a causal effect on health status remains controversial. The authors investigate...
In this paper, the authors investigate the effect of positive income shocks on the mental health of adolescent girls using experimental evidence from a cash transfer program in Malawi. They find that the...
Conditional Cash Transfer programs are "...the world's favorite new anti-poverty device," (The Economist, July 29 2010) yet little is known about the specific role of the conditions in driving their success...
Recent evidence suggests that conditional cash transfer programs for schooling are effective in raising school enrollment and attendance. However, there is also reason to believe that such programs can...
As of 2007, 29 developing countries had some type of conditional cash transfer program in place, with many others planning or piloting one. However, the evidence base needed by a government to decide how...
The diffusion of cost-effective life saving technologies has reduced infant mortality in much of the developing world. Income gains may also play a direct, protective role in ensuring child survival, although...