Institutionalized conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs may affect important aspects of pre-existing, informal safety nets such as inter-household transfers and trust among community members. We use a randomized controlled trial to test the impact of CCTs on various measures of trust and informal...

Low tax compliance in low- and middle-income countries around the world limits the ability of governments to offer effective public services. This paper reports the results of a randomly rolled out text message campaign aimed at promoting tax compliance among landowners in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. L...

Evidence suggests that Africa is the most vulnerable continent to climate change. While African countries contribute relatively little to global emissions, they remain significantly vulnerable to the devastating economic effects of this phenomenon. This paper reviews IMF activities and explores how ...

Although research has established the importance of state capacity in economic development, less is known about how state capacity comes about and the role of external partners in the process. This paper estimates the impact of an external project designed to build state capacity in a low-income cou...

This study characterizes rates of physical and sexual violence against adolescent girls and compares rates of violence against girls who are enrolled versus unenrolled in school, to contribute to an understanding of the relative risks associated with school attendance. We look at rates of violence a...

Education systems regularly face unexpected school closures, whether due to disease outbreaks, natural disasters, or other adverse shocks. In this paper we evaluate the effectiveness of live tutoring calls from teachers using an RCT with 4,399 primary school students in Sierra Leone.

We used a randomized management consulting intervention with 80 public-sector healthcare facilities in Nigeria to study the role of information, training, and supervision on the adoption of improved organizational practices.