Chinese outward direct investment (ODI) is unique in the sense that it starts in the early stage of economic development and does not move factories overseas. Empirical analyses using firm-level data confirm that the main purpose of Chinese ODI is to strengthen domestic production and...

Modern economic development is accompanied by the structural transformation from an agrarian to an industrial economy. Since the 18th century, all countries that industrialized successfully have followed their comparative advantages and leveraged the latecomer advantage, including emerging...

In a canonical model of collective action, individual contribution to collective action is negatively correlated with group size. Yet, empirical evidence on the group size effect has been mixed, partly due to heterogeneities in group activities. In this paper, we first construct a simple model...

This paper provides a quantitative analysis of how the changing dual economic structure and urbanization affect inequality in Asia. Focusing on data for four countries—the Peoples’ Republic of China, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines—the paper asks three questions. First, how much of...

Economists broadly agree on many key economic policy issues, but economics as a discipline has provided much less guidance on why and how economic policy reform occurs and how to develop institutional mechanisms that enable governments to adopt “good” economic policy. Political scientists...

We study the effect of political connection (PC) on company value in an environment where low PC is due to better institutions and not confounded by favorable social/cultural factors. We find that in Singapore, the only country that fits this description, PC in general adds little to the value...

This paper revisits demographic dividend issues after almost 2 decades of debate. In 1998, David Bloom and I used a convergence model to estimate the impact of demographic-transition-driven age structure effects and calculated what the literature has come to call the “demographic dividend.”...

The dynamic process of integration of national economies has a long history, with two distinct waves: one, from the middle of the 19th century until its interruption with outbreak of the First World War in 1913 till the end of the Second World War in 1945. The second wave is ongoing dating from...

Chinese outward direct investment (ODI) is unique in the sense that it starts in the early stage of economic development and does not move factories overseas. Empirical analyses using firm-level data confirm that the main purpose of Chinese ODI is to strengthen domestic production and...

In a canonical model of collective action, individual contribution to collective action is negatively correlated with group size. Yet, empirical evidence on the group size effect has been mixed, partly due to heterogeneities in group activities. In this paper, we first construct a simple model...