Public works programs – workfare – are used in many fragile and conflict-affected countries to offer a safety net to poor and vulnerable households. But how large is their impact, do men and women benefit equally, and do they have a wider social benefit? Arthur Alik-Lagrange tells Tim Phillips about the impact of one program in the Central African Republic.

El Salvador’s civil war ended a generation ago, but what is its legacy in the regions that were occupied by guerrillas? The economy can recover, but is there longer-lasting damage to institutions and trust? Mica Sviatschi talks to Tim Phillips about how El Salvador is still divided by conflict.

Better access to childcare may make it easier for women to get jobs outside the home, get better jobs, or make more money doing the job they have already. All desirable outcomes, but how easy are they to achieve? Selim Gulesci talks to Tim Phillips about a J-Pal Policy Insight that pulls together the research on these topics.

If we can provide better employment opportunities for women, in theory that could reduce domestic violence – but strong empirical evidence has been hard to find. Deniz Sanin tell Tim Phillips how government policy to boost coffee exports in Rwanda may have reduced domestic violence and why paid work has this effect.

Zulfiqar Bhutta of the Centre for Global Child Health is one of the global leaders in implementing large-scale public health programs in developing countries. He tells Tim Phillips about what he has learned about working with communities to improve their health, how failure can often be a positive learning experience, and what clinicians can learn from – and teach – economists. 

Photo credit: DFID/Russell Watkins

When there’s a successful agricultural extension program, how much of that success is sustained when it is discontinued? How long it takes to change behaviour, and whether change is permanent, can tell us a lot about whether the program is good value. Munshi Sulaiman tells Tim Phillips about a “reverse RCT” in Uganda that tested this question.

Managers often don’t know how much effort their workers are putting into a job. Technology offers a way to solve this problem by monitoring those workers automatically. But do all workers put in more effort when they are monitored? Golvine de Rochambeau talks to Tim Phillips about what happened when Liberia’s truck drivers had GPS trackers fitted to their trucks.

Are fathers more generous to their sons than their daughters? If that investment is in the child’s education and healthcare, then gender-based differences are not just unfair, they give sons a head start in the future. Rebecca Dizon Ross tells Tim Phillips about a new experiment to measure mother-father differences in spending, and to discover why it happens.

Photo credit: Brian Wolfe/flickr

How does trade policy shape foreign direct investment in exporting countries, and how might this affect their structural transformation? Nina Pavcnik tells Tim Phillips about the long-run impact of a bilateral agreement between Vietnam and the US, with some surprising insights into the relationship between trade and job creation. Photo credit: Hien Phung, stock.adobe.com.

The risk that a child will die is lower than it used to be, but in low-income countries it is still not unusual. But how persistent is this in families, and what does this tell us about the causes and consequences of child mortality? Tom Vogl talks to Tim Phillips.