The social and economic consequences of poor mental health in the developing world are presumed to be significant, yet are largely under-researched. The authors argue that mental health modules can be meaningfully added to multi-purpose household surveys in developing countries, and used to...

This paper identifies endogenous social effects in mathematics test performance for eighth graders in rural Bangladesh using information on arsenic contamination of water wells at home as an instrument. In other words, the identification relies on variation in test scores among peers owing to...

The authors explore the relation between the establishment of a regulatory agency and the performance of the electricity sector. The authors exploit a unique dataset comprising firm-level information on a representative sample of 220 electric utilities from 51 development and transition...

Private tutoring is now a major component of the education sector in many developing countries, yet education policy too seldom acknowledges and makes use of it. Various criticisms have been raised against private tutoring, most notably that it exacerbates social inequalities and may even fail...

Knowledge about development effectiveness is constrained by two factors. First, the project staff in governments and international agencies who decide how much to invest in research on specific interventions are often not well informed about the returns to rigorous evaluation and (even when they...

Bringing management of the radio spectrum closer to markets is long overdue. The radio spectrum is a major component of the infrastructure that underpins the information society. Spectrum management, however, has not kept up with major changes in technology, business practice, and economic...

Health systems are not just about improving health: good ones also ensure that people are protected from the financial consequences of receiving medical care. Anecdotal evidence suggests health systems often perform badly in this respect, apparently with devastating consequences for households,...

Cost-benefit analysis in education is an important tool in the economists' arsenal. However, it is essential that research, especially on the social benefits of education, make further progress to make cost-benefit more analysis. There is a need for more research on the effects of policy...

This paper aims to shed some new light on the conditions needed to ensure the effectiveness of Boards of Directors of state owned enterprises with a focus on infrastructure sectors. In the case of developing countries, empirical studies have found evidence of positive links between the...

What causes developing countries to receive different levels of international remittances? This paper addresses this question by using new data on such variables as the skill composition of migrants, poverty, and interest and exchange rates to examine the determinants of remittances. The paper...