The role of agriculture in development remains much debated. This paper takes an empirical perspective and focuses on poverty, as opposed to growth alone. The contribution of a sector to poverty reduction is shown to depend on its own growth performance, its indirect impact on growth in other...

This paper uses a Ricardian model to generate predictions about the influence of institutions on trade in differentiated (complex) and commoditized (simple) products and then uses a rich international trade data set for empirical tests. The model draws the distinction between the role of...

The adoption of agriculture during the Neolithic period triggered the first demographic explosion in history. When fertility returned to its original level, agriculturalists were more numerous, more poorly nourished, and worked longer hours than their hunter-gatherer ancestors. We develop a...

Methodologies now commonly used for the construction of poverty maps assume a substantial degree of homogeneity within geographical areas in the relationship between income and its predictors. However, local labor and rental markets and other local environmental differences are likely to...

Given the paucity of quality price data, it is common to rely on "unit value" (average expenditure per unit) as a proxy for price, but this is an imperfect proxy if households respond to price increases by substituting to lower quality goods. This paper draws on survey data that contain both...

The existing literature on the relationship between property rights in land and agricultural investment in Africa has given results that are often confusing and contradictory. I make two clarifying contributions to this literature. First, I pull together existing studies and investigate whether...

We study whether and how the success of microfinance institutions ("MFI"s) depends on the country-level context, in particular macroeconomic and macro-institutional features. Understanding these linkages can make MFI evaluation more accurate and, further, can help to locate microfinance in the...

This paper conducts a reexamination of the Prebisch-Singer hypothesis by employing the unit root test proposed by Lee and Strazicich (2003) and Lee and Strazicich (2004) that allow for up to two structural breaks. Given the higher power of these tests compared to the Zivot and Andrews (1992) and...

Countries with intermediate levels of institutional quality suffer larger output contractions following sudden stops of capital inflows than less developed nations. However, countries with strong institutions seldom experience significant falls in output after capital flow reversals. We...

Despite the importance of remittances to developing countries, their impact on banking sector breadth and depth in recipient countries has been largely unexplored. We examine this topic using municipality-level data on the fraction of households receiving remittances and on measures of banking...