This paper examines the post-reform economic growth in three Central American economies - Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Panama. From 1995 to 2015, each economy witnessed phenomenal shifts in labor market participation and occupational distribution of women. If the innate talent for a job did not...

Bihar, India's poorest state, witnessed impressive yield growth in each of its three principal crops over 2005-17. This paper examines whether a convergence in district yields accompanied the improvement in yields at the state level, thereby reducing regional inequalities in land productivity....

Using panel data on input-output intensities and expenditure prices from 28 countries, this paper finds the elasticity of substitution across sectoral inputs to be less than one in each of the three broad sectors of the economy. Intermediates are most complementary in the production of services...

This paper investigates the relative importance of different channels in explaining the low share of industrial employment in Latin America relative to the economies that employ a large share of the workforce in industry. Differences in domestic final consumption shares play a pivotal role and...

This paper compares the intergenerational mobility of educational and occupational attainment of men from disadvantaged groups (Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST)) in India with the intergenerational mobility of men outside these groups during 1983-2009. Although there has been a...

The paper assembles and harmonizes sectoral data from several sources to study the industrial trends in six Central American economies. The industrial employment share contracted by 2.5 percentage points on average over the past two decades. This deindustrialization was not trade-driven in which...

India's economic policy has long been obsessed with high growth rates, often sidelining other crucial goals like job creation, which has lagged significantly. In light of this slow job growth, critics are now pushing for a greater emphasis on employment, arguing it's vital for sustaining...

Bangladesh has achieved robust economic growth over the past 10 years, with real GDP growing by more than 6 percent on average each year. This paper investigates whether the country will be able to maintain such high levels of growth going forward. A simple growth model calibrated to the...

This paper examines the role of changes in sectoral productivity gaps over time in accounting for growth realized by countries over the past few decades. To quantify the productivity impact of the sectoral gaps, a simple model of resource allocation is developed in which the gaps arise due to...

The paper uses a detailed household survey to document precautionary wealth accumulation in Afghanistan, with wealth being significantly higher for households facing higher income uncertainty. Annual household expenditure on nondurable goods is also lower for these households. There is no...