The paper assesses the impact of overall inequality, as well as inequality among the poor and among the rich, on the growth rates along various percentiles of the income distribution. The analysis uses micro-census data from U.S. states covering the period from 1960 to 2010. The paper finds...

In many developing countries, the supply of skilled workers is likely to continue to be stronger than demand, and this should drive down the skill premium and reduce inequality. Within the limitations of any exercise based on simulations, this paper finds that the recently observed reduction in...

This paper presents estimates of the relationship between the share of income accruing to the middle class and gross domestic product per capita of economies from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The increase in gross domestic product per capita that these economies experienced during...

This paper presents the largest globally comparable panel database of education quality. The database includes 163 countries and regions over 1965-2015. The globally comparable achievement outcomes were constructed by linking standardized, psychometrically-robust international and regional...

This paper presents empirical evidence of the profound and long-term damages from adverse natural events on poverty. It analyzes 30 years of macro-level damage data from disasters (including earthquakes, floods, and storms), according to income groups, and shows that low-income countries incur...

Migration is an important yet neglected determinant of institutions. This paper documents the channels through which emigration affects home country institutions and considers dynamic-panel regressions for a large sample of developing countries. The authors find that emigration and human capital...