Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This paper provides evidence of the effects of a large-scale intervention that focuses on the quality of nutritional and child care inputs during the early stages of life. The empirical strategy uses a combination of double-difference and weighting estimators in a longitudinal survey to address the purposive placement of participating communities and estimate the effect of the availability of the program at the community level on nutritional outcomes. The authors find that the program helped 0-5 year old children in the participating communities to bridge the gap in weight for age z-scores and the incidence of underweight. The program also had significant effects in protecting long-term nutritional outcomes (height for age z-scores and incidence of stunting) against an underlying negative trend in the absence of the program. Importantly, the effect of the program exhibits substantial heterogeneity: gains in nutritional outcomes are larger for more educated mothers and for villages with better infrastructure. The program enables the analysis to isolate responsiveness to information provision and disentangle the effect of knowledge in the education effect on nutritional outcomes. The results are suggestive of important complementarities among child care, maternal education, and community infrastructure.

Breastfeeding --- Child Development --- Child Nutrition --- Communities & Human Settlements --- Early Child and Children's Health --- Health Monitoring and Evaluation --- Health Outcomes --- Health Services --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Housing and Human Habitats --- Hygiene --- Intervention --- Nutrition --- Nutritional Status --- Population Policies --- Public Health

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

In April 2015, the Government of Ukraine abruptly raised the tariffs of natural gas to residential customers, which were previously well below the cost of acquiring gas and delivering it to households. The tariff increase-700 percent-caused considerable distress to the population and led the government to scale up its existing energy assistance program, the housing and utilities subsidy program. This paper examines the welfare effect of the program and potential redesigns of the program. Using several waves of Ukraine's Household Budget Survey, the analysis finds that electricity, gas, and fuels account for a considerable share of household income. After the tariff hike, the average household that did not receive the housing and utilities subsidy spends 11 percent of its income on electricity, gas, and fuels, implying that it meets the definition of "fuel poor". The average share for households that do receive the subsidy is 6-8 percent. The housing and utilities subsidy cuts the rate of fuel poverty in half. It also brings considerable consumer surplus gains of 6-7 percent of income. This comes at a high price tag for the government, as the budget for the housing and utilities subsidy is 1-2.5 percent of gross domestic product. Considerable savings would be achieved with only a small loss of consumer surplus if the housing and utilities subsidy was cut in half. Linking the subsidy solely to income would also attain considerable savings, but at a high loss of welfare. The housing and utilities subsidy could also be paired with social tariffs, or an energy efficiency subsidy, with major savings for the government.

Consumer Welfare --- Electric Power --- Energy --- Energy Assistance --- Energy Consumption --- Energy Demand --- Energy Efficiency --- Energy Policies and Economics --- Fuel Poverty --- Fuel Price --- Fuel Subsidy --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Natural Gas --- Oil and Gas --- Taxation and Subsidies

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This paper examines China's rural minimum living standard guarantee (dibao) program, one of the largest minimum income cash transfer schemes in the world. Using household survey data matched with published administrative data, the paper describes the dibao program, estimates the program's impact on poverty, and carries out targeting analysis. The analysis finds that the program provides sufficient income to poor beneficiaries but does not substantially reduce the overall level of poverty, in part because the number of beneficiaries is small relative to the number of poor. Conventional targeting analysis reveals rather large inclusionary and exclusionary targeting errors; propensity score targeting analysis yields smaller but still large targeting errors. Simulations of possible reforms to the dibao program indicate that expanding coverage can potentially yield greater poverty reduction than increasing transfer amounts. In addition, replacing locally diverse dibao lines with a nationally uniform dibao threshold could in theory reduce poverty. The potential gains in poverty reduction, however, depend on the effectiveness of targeting.

Cash transfers --- Macroeconomics and economic growth --- Poverty monitoring & analysis --- Poverty reduction --- Rural poverty --- Rural poverty reduction --- Services & transfers to poor --- Targeting

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This paper estimates average and marginal returns to schooling in Indonesia using a non-parametric selection model estimated by local instrumental variables, and data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey. The analysis finds that the return to upper secondary schooling varies widely across individual: it can be as high as 50 percent per year of schooling for those very likely to enroll in upper secondary schooling, or as low as -10 percent for those very unlikely to do so. Returns to the marginal student (14 percent) are well below those for the average student attending upper secondary schooling (27 percent).

Average Return --- Education --- Education for All --- Marginal Return --- Marginal Treatment Effect --- Population Policies --- Primary Education --- Returns to Schooling --- Secondary Education --- Social Development --- Teaching and Learning