This report summarizes recent trends in large-scale tropical forest clearing identified by FORMA (Forest Monitoring for Action). FORMA produces indicators that track monthly changes in the number of 1-sq.-km. tropical forest parcels that have experienced clearing with high probability. This report a...

This paper develops and illustrates a prototype incentive system for promoting rapid reduction of forest clearing in tropical countries.

To enhance efficiency of public spending in oil-rich economies, this paper proposes that some of the oil revenues be transferred directly to citizens, and then taxed to finance public expenditures. The argument is that spending that is financed by taxation—rather than by resource revenues accruing d...

David Wheeler and co-authors use detailed monthly data from FORMA (Forest Monitoring for Action) to determine the factors that contribute to deforestation in Indonesia. Their results highlight the importance of incorporating economic dynamics into financial compensation arrangements for forest conse...

This set includes data and Stata files to replicate the results in CGD Working Paper 279, “The High Return to Private Schooling in a Low-Income Country”

Readers of David Roodman's Microfinance Open Book Blog will immediately recognize his thorough, straightforward, and trenchant analysis of whether microfinance is the boon many think it is.

Using data from Kenya—a poor country with weak public institutions—the authors find a large effect of private schooling on test scores, equivalent to one full standard deviation.