We construct a dynamic Ricardian model with a nominal exchange rate and trade costs. The model predicts that the nominal wages of the trading countries exhibit stronger positive comovements when the countries fix their bilateral exchange rates, while comovements of real wages are not affected by...

This paper empirically examines whether and how experiencing climate-related disasters can improve the rural poorfs adaptation to climate change through community-based resource management. Original household survey data in Fiji capture the unique sequence of a tropical cyclone and the...

To design effective policies for rainforest conservation in shifting cultivation systems, it is crucial to have a better understanding of shifting cultivatorsf decision making. This paper develops a unified dynamic farm model of shifting cultivation, addressing two lacunae in extant theoretical...

The effect of accepting more immigrants on welfare in the presence of a pay-as-you-go social security system is analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. First, it is shown that if initially there exist intergenerational government transfers from the young to the old, the government can lead an...

Although international remittances are important insurance against natural disasters in developing countries, fraud is a pitfall of international labor migration. This paper addresses an unexplored question about the disaster-fraud nexus: Do natural disasters beget fraud victimization among the...

Rapidly decreasing gender gaps in schooling in developing countries can be a result of a gendered division of child farm labor as a coping response to increased natural disasters. This paper makes a case for this conjecture by analyzing original household survey data from rural Fiji. Boys, not...

This article examines the substitutability, efficiency, and evolution of an important nonmarket institution in agrarian societies ? labor sharing. From analyses of field-level data on forest clearing through time among shifting cultivators in the Peruvian Amazon, we find: (1) no productivity...

Using the Kehoe and Ruhl (2009) methodology, we investigate whether the variety of traded goods, which is the extensive margin of trade, has actually changed in a transition economy, such as Mongolia, as predicted by recent theoretical models. We find large increases in the extensive margin of...

How disaster aid is allocated within poor villages is little understood. This paper examines risk-sharing institutions and social hierarchies as village self-allocation mechanisms. Original survey data from Fiji contain rich information about cyclone damage, traditional kin status, and aid...

This chapter reviews farm-level economic models of shifting cultivation and those of deforestation and soil conservation related to shifting cultivation. Although economists have made significant progress in modeling shifting cultivation over the last two decades, extant economic models neither...