This paper is the first to present panel data evidence on the longer-term impact of expansion of global value chains and large-scale export-oriented farms in developing countries. Using panel data from two survey rounds covering a seven-year period and fixed effects regression, we estimate the...

The 1860–1970 period is a particularly interesting period to study wine trade because of dramatic changes in the wine markets and trade over the course of a century. The dramatic changes in trade flows were caused by both “nature” and “men”. Mediterranean wine trade represented around...

This research explores the effects of culture on technological diffusion and economic development. It shows that culture's direct effects on development and barrier effects to technological diffusion are, in general, observationally equivalent. In particular, using a large set of measures of...

There is wide variation in how consumption is measured in household surveys, both across countries and over time. This variation may confound welfare comparisons in part because these alternative survey designs produce consumption estimates differentially influenced by contrasting types of...

Case studies across the social sciences have established a positive relationship between social status and happiness. In observational data, however, identification challenges remain severe. This study exploits the fact that in India people are assigned a caste from birth. In data on 1000...

This paper investigates the effects of work experience abroad on political opinions using survey data from Moldova, a former soviet republic caught in an ideological battle between Russia and the West, with high emigration rates to both destinations. Contrarily to studies conducted in Africa or...

This research investigates the effect of cultural traits on migration, by analyzing differences in norms, attitudes and beliefs between individuals who intend to emigrate and those who do not. The results show that cultural traits affect emigration decisions. Significant self-selection patterns...

We develop an extended Nominal Rate of Assistance (NRA) methodology to disentangle the welfare impacts of policies for various interest groups along the value chain (to disaggregate effects within the “producer” and “consumer” umbrellas). We apply our value chain NRA methodology to the...

Microfinance institutions, despite the presence of competition and informational asymmetries, typically offer a limited variety of contracts. Assuming price competition, we propose a simple theoretical explanation for this behavior and study its consequences in terms of strategic interaction and...

We address the issue of endogenous expenditures in the context of a censored demand system by an augmented regression approach estimated with a two-step estimator. An application to food demand by urban households in Mozambique shows that accounting for endogeneity is potentially important in...