Development economics in its early years created the image of a fierce fight between advocates of contrasting theories or approaches - quot;balanced growthquot; vs. unbalanced growth or program loans vs. project loans. This view has the merit to highlight such conflicts in great detail; yet it...

We provide three new empirical perspectives on inequality in the context of economic development, one focusing on income inequality, and the remaining two on gender inequality. First, we jointly analyze the causal effects of geography, trade integration, and institutional quality on different...

In recent years, a growing body of economic literature has focused on the phenomenon of the so-called middle-income trap (MIT). The term usually refers to countries that have experienced rapid growth and thus quickly reached middle-income status, but then failed to overcome that income range to...

This research explores the emergence and prevalence of economic specialization and trade in pre-modern societies. It advances the hypothesis, and establishes empirically that population diversity had a positive causal effect on economic specialization and trade. Based on a novel ethnic level...

We present a practical guide to randomized impact evaluation in Development Economics for people who are interested in starting a field experiment for the first time. We provide an overview of the important steps in planning and implementing a randomized evaluation from beginning to end. The...

This essay is an entry in the forthcoming Encyclopedia of International Economic Law from Edward Elgar Publishing, edited by Krista Nadakavukaren Schefer and Thomas Cottier and due to be published in 2016. Development is about aspiration — our longing for a better life as individuals and as a...