Nation-building has long been seen as an important focus for postcolonial African governments. However, up until now there has been no empirical analysis of either the origins or consequences of these policies. Here we compile an original dataset measuring nine different types of nation-building...

Specific functional forms are often used in economic models of distributions; goodness-of-fit measures are used to assess whether a functional form is appropriate in the light of real-world data. Standard approaches use a distance criterion based on the EDF, an aggregation of differences in...

In this paper we examine the concept of quot;vulnerabilityquot; (Townsend 1994) within thecontext of income mobility of the poor. We test for the dynamics of vulnerablehouseholds in the UK using Waves 1 - 12 of the British Household Panel Survey andfind that, of three different types of risks...

In this paper we examine the concept of quot;vulnerabilityquot; within the context of incomemobility of the poor. We test for the dynamics of vulnerable households in the UKusing Waves 1 - 12 of the British Household Panel Study and find that, of threedifferent types of risks that we test for,...

This paper documents the convergence of incomes across Indian states over the period 1965 to 1998. It departs from traditional analyses of convergence by tracking the evolution of the entire income distribution, instead of standard regression and time series analyses. The findings reveal...

Acemoglu, Johnson, & Robinson (2002) have claimed that the world income distribution underwent a Reversal of Fortune from 1500 to the present, whereby formerly rich countries in what is now the developing world became poor while poor ones grew rich. We question their analysis with regard to both...