Some of the ideas in this paper were inspired by communications with David Card, Patricia Ruggles, and Bruce Meyer. I am also grateful to Daniel McMurrer for providing me with spreadsheets describing the Urban Institute's methodology for estimating the effects of welfare work requirements. Ken Kline provided excellent research assistance. The research for this paper was conducted with financial...

For several decades, development theorists, planners and policy makers have experimented extensively with poverty reduction strategies to arrive at some kind of a consensus on the essential elements of such strategies. The World Bank’s recent World Development Report 2000/2001, Attacking Poverty provides an example of a consensus view that identifies poverty as the consequence of lack of access...

Beyond its intrinsic value to individuals, health is also central to overall human development and poverty reduction. Yet the poor continue to carry a disproportionate burden of ill health. If the health of poor people is to improve, a propoor health approach needs to be put in place and supported by development agencies. The nature of that support will be determined by the country context, par...

To escape from poverty requires assets, be they human, physical, social, or financial. Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) are designed to help the poor build assets. Withdrawals from IDAs are matched if used for home purchase, post-secondary education, or self-employment. Participants also receive financial education and support from IDA s t a ff. This paper discusses evidence from the A m ...

BACKGROUND Disease has become one of the key causes of falling into poverty in rural China. The poor households are even more likely to suffer. The New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) has been implemented to provide rural residents financial protection against health risks. This study aims to assess the effect of the NCMS on alleviating health payment-induced poverty in the Shaanxi Province o...

Beyond its intrinsic value to individuals, health is also central to overall human development and poverty reduction. Yet the poor continue to carry a disproportionate burden of ill health. If the health of poor people is to improve, a propoor health approach needs to be put in place and supported by development agencies. The nature of that support will be determined by the country context, par...

Malaria is endemic in India and its control has become a formidable task. The Planning Commission of the Government of India estimates that 26.1% of the population of India lives below the poverty line. We have examined during 1999–2000, the status of malaria since 1965 in states below the poverty line. Reduction in poverty to about half since 1970 resulted in improvement in the situation in we...

Mobile money, a service that allows monetary value to be stored on a mobile phone and sent to other users via text messages, has been adopted by the vast majority of Kenyan households. We estimate that access to the Kenyan mobile money system M-PESA increased per capita consumption levels and lifted 194,000 households, or 2% of Kenyan households, out of poverty. The impacts, which are more pron...

While the structural adjustment approach has been guiding the orientation of International Financial Institutions (IFIs), namely the International Monetary Institute and the World Bank's, approaches to poverty reduction in much of the developing world, the evidence that it actually brings about poverty reduction remains controversial. Such debate provides the premise for this background paper w...