As you sit in front of your screen, the thought of wild dangerous beasts in faraway places may sound quaint and take you to another era when Sandokan fought off ferocious felines or to the protection of innocence in the Life of Pi. But less cinematic beasts such as wild boars can inflict significant economic hardship on poor farmers. … [Read more...] about Where the wild beasts are (and attack randomly)
What does and doesn't work in development
CCTs: not the silver bullet, but with long lasting positive effects
Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) were a major social policy innovation in the mid/late 1990s. Instead of providing generalized subsidies, using price controls, and/or directly distributing food as means to help the poor (instruments that are inefficient, distort markets and in general are regressive), governments began to transfer cash directly to the poorest families, … [Read more...] about CCTs: not the silver bullet, but with long lasting positive effects
Incentives in education
Participants and researchers interested on education held a session to discuss evidence on incentive schemes in education at the International workshop on Surveys and Impact Evaluation (#Taller_EEIPP) workshop taking place in Santiago. A fundamental question in education is how to introduce incentives for teachers to improve student outcomes. The teacher is the … [Read more...] about Incentives in education
Tourism for poverty alleviation: are we there yet?
By Paul Winters* In preparation for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is investing very heavily in tourism. Much of this investment seeks to expand the benefits of tourism to new regions in the hope that tourism can be a driver of growth, create jobs and generate higher wages in local economies. Brazil is not alone in seeking to use … [Read more...] about Tourism for poverty alleviation: are we there yet?
Accountability and corruption
For a while I have been meaning to write a post on the impact of political institutions on corruption based on an interesting paper on municipal elections in Brazil. The paper shows that the reelection specter helps in disciplining corrupt politicians Mayors with reelection incentives misappropriate 27 percent fewer resources than mayors without reelection incentives. These … [Read more...] about Accountability and corruption