Subsidising healthcare for children in Mali substantially increased necessary care-seeking while generating only minimal unnecessary use.

In Nigeria, cash transfers to women increase their desire for agency but only when husbands can't see it – revealing the complex interplay between economic empowerment and social norms.

In Nigeria, cash transfers to women increase their desire for agency but only when husbands can't see it – revealing the complex interplay between economic empowerment and social norms.

The 1870 Education Act demonstrates how targeted public investment in education can help narrow the gap in opportunity between rich and poor children.

Aid agencies and governments spend more than a billion US$ on entrepreneurship training annually. What have we learned about the effectiveness of training? We review the current understanding of enterprise training. Firms and entrepreneurs are not all the same, and many programmes are targeted to specific types of businesses. Our review is modular, designed so that readers interested in one particular topic do not need to read the entire review. We summarise the state of knowledge in each section as follows:Traditional entrepreneurship training has modest but (across studies) significant...

The 1870 Education Act demonstrates how targeted public investment in education can help narrow the gap in opportunity between rich and poor children.

The 1870 Education Act demonstrates how targeted public investment in education can help narrow the gap in opportunity between rich and poor children.

Inequality pushes poor households to sacrifice nutrition for ‘little luxuries’, reshaping basic needs and worsening malnutrition. The implications for poverty programmes are large.

This week we featured research on debt, inequality, conflict, government and more!

Inequality pushes poor households to sacrifice nutrition for ‘little luxuries’, reshaping basic needs and worsening malnutrition. The implications for poverty programmes are large.

Training women in assertive communication in India enabled them to more effectively persuade their husbands to support their participation in the workforce – leading to substantial and sustained incre...

Africa’s total public debt has risen more than fourfold since the early 2000s, but just as important as the increase in debt volumes is the shift in structure. This column uses a new open-access dataset covering more than 50,000 loans and securities issued by 54 African countries to reveal that African governments now raise more than half of their financing at home, reversing decades of dependence on external lenders. While the rise of domestic debt markets may deepen financial systems, foster local investor bases, and enhance monetary autonomy, the authors warn that the line between...

In China, granting firms the right to trade internationally boosted productivity, with gains growing over time and shared with workers through higher wages.