Explanations for the West's escape from premature mortality have focused on chronic malnutrition or income and on public health or state capacity. We argue that by ignoring the multigenerational effects of variance in ancestors' harvests, we are underestimating the contribution of modern...

The failure of newly independent Central Asian countries to diversify exports after the Soviet Union's collapse is attributed to high trade costs, either because these countries are landlocked or due to border delays and regulatory obstacles. This paper estimates the impact of the high costs of...

We propose a methodology to calculate the mismatch between places of work and places of residence that incorporates monetary and opportunity transportation costs while correcting for possible overestimation of job accessibility. This methodology enables the analysis of spatiotemporal changes in...