Little is known about the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) financial flows within the United States (US) government, to its contractors, and to countries. We track the financial flows of PEPFAR – from donor agencies via intermediaries and finally to prime partners. We ...

The eighth Millennium Development Goal (MDG 8) covered a “global partnership for development” in areas including aid, trade, debt relief, drugs, and information and communications technology (ICT).  Since the goal was formulated, there has been progress as well as gaps in the areas ...

Julia Clark and David Roodman investigate whether better ranking of think tanks is possible by exploiting modern tools for measuring citations in both traditional and new media, as well as in academe. They find that with modest effort the status quo of ranking the tanks can be improved.

This paper lists—and attempts to address—the most serious objections to Oil-to-Cash. The response to many objections is to ask about a plausible counterfactual (how do cash transfers compare to the alternative policy options?). Others warrant a clearer articulation of available evidence or ways to m...

In Greenprint, Aaditya Mattoo and Arvind Subramanian argued that only radical technological progress can reconcile climate-change goals with those of development and energy access. In this paper, they show how trade policy and trade rules can facilitate action on climate change.

Biometric identification is spreading rapidly across the developing world, where it is helping to close the “identification gap” that separates poor countries from rich ones. India’s Unique Identification (UID) project offers important lessons for other countries.

The authors carry out a systematic review of studies on CCTs that report maternal and newborn health outcomes, including studies from eight countries. We find that CCTs have increased antenatal visits, skilled attendance at birth, delivery at a health facility, and tetanus toxoid vaccination for mot...

This study is about recovering money stolen by corrupt politicians and officials. Asset recovery is a key element in deterring and punishing the corrupt, and the reduction of corruption is critical to development. The money can be put to better uses once recovered, and it amounts to billions.