Developing countries strongly emphasize enhancing foundational reading skills, with the expectation that such improvements will catalyze the development of new cognitive abilities and lead to improved life outcomes. However, the relationship between early educational gains and later-life achievement...

There is substantial evidence that cost-sharing in medical care constrains total health spending. However, there is relatively little (and unclear) evidence on its health effects, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This paper re-evaluates the link between outpatient cost-sharing and h...

Women’s credit constraints are related to gender differentials at the levels of the individual, the household, or the community. While constraints at the individual level tend to erase as women increase their wealth and business experience to match those of men, constraints that emerge from women’s ...

International financial institutions (IFIs) appear to agree that quality of policymaking sees gains from diversifying the body of policymakers, all issuing diversity, equity, and inclusion statements. But how do these institutions perform when it comes to their own staff— do they lead by example? We...

Exposure to school violence has been proven to be detrimental to human capital formation, but there is limited rigorous evidence about how to tackle this pervasive issue. This paper examines the impacts of a large-scale government intervention that aimed to improve school leaders’ skills to manage s...

Over two decades and dozens of countries, the United States Agency for International Development has refined a package of support for early-grade reading, often referred to as “structured pedagogy”, which includes textbooks, teacher training, coaching, and lesson plans.

School violence—physical, sexual, and psychological—is prevalent in many schools around the world. Because media coverage of current events can play an important role in shaping tolerance for school violence and policy responses, we examine 208 recent news items about school-related violence in the ...