We use individual and multi-level data from Zambia on child nutritional health to test the absolute income hypothesis (AIH), the relative income hypothesis (RIH) and the income inequality hypothesis (IIH). The results confirm a non-linear positive relation between economic resources and health,...

We show theoretically that the poor can benefit from price changes induced by higher income inequality. As the number of poor in a society increases, or when the income difference between rich and poor increases, the market for products aimed towards the poor grows and such products become more...

Using panel data from more than 100 countries around the world from 1988 through 2007, this paper examines the relationship between economic and social globalization and absolute income poverty ex post. We use the globalization index developed by Dreher (2006) and the World Bank poverty...

Using panel data from more than 100 countries around the world from 1988 through 2007, this paper examines the relationship between economic and social globalization and absolute income poverty ex post. We use the globalization index developed by Dreher (2006) and the World Bank poverty...

The existing literature on determinants of migration flows typically claims that income differences across countries should be a pushing factor for people's movement. We suggest that institutional quality is a better proxy for the factors that trigger migration. People may well want to stay in...

Using World Bank data on institutional quality and the KOF Globalization Index, we examine over 100 countries from 1992 to 2010 to analyze the relationship between economic and social globalization and six measures of institutional quality. Theoretically, the incentives of elites to respond to...

The literature on the relationship between the size of government and economic growth is full of seemingly contradictory findings. This conflict is largely explained by variations in definitions and the countries studied. An alternative approach - of limiting the focus to studies of the...

In this paper, we use data from a corruption survey conducted among top politicians and high level civil servants in 290 Swedish municipalities in 2007 to investigate the effects of government size on corruption. We construct several measures of corruption based on the survey, and combine these...

In a recent paper, Colombier (2009) uses a robust estimation technique and claims to find empirical evidence that government size has not been detrimental to growth for OECD countries during the 1970 to 2001 period, and that endogenous growth theory is not corroborated. We examine the robustness...

In most OECD-countries, immigrants have lower employment and higher unemployment than natives. This paper compares nine potential explanations of these gaps. Results are obtained for 21-28 countries using bivariate correlations, OLS-regressions and Bayesian model averaging over all 512...