A large national farm panel from India covering a quarter century (1982, 1999, and 2008) is used to show that the inverse farm size-yield relationship weakened significantly over time, despite an increase in the dispersion of farm sizes. Key reasons are substitution of capital for labor in...

Using economic data from more than 8,500 household surveys across 10 African countries, this paper examines whether the choice of farm type depends on the climate and agro-ecological zone of each farm. The paper also studies how farm type choice varies across farmers in each zone, using a...

Many African countries rely on sporadic land transfers from customary to statutory domains to attract investment and improve agricultural performance. Data from 15,000 smallholders and 800 estates in Malawi allow exploring the long-term effects of such a strategy. The results suggest that (i)...

This paper estimates a model of a farm that treats the choice of crops, livestock, and irrigation as endogenous. The model is composed of a multinomial choice of farm type, a binomial choice of irrigation, and a set of conditional land value functions. The model is estimated across over 2,000...

This paper reviews the impact of financial inclusion on economic development outcomes. It highlights the benefits of financial inclusion, including greater savings, improved resilience to economic shocks, and higher levels of economic empowerment, among others. It looks deeper into both the...

Although deaths and economic losses due to extreme heat are rising globally, heatwaves remain a "hidden hazard" whose impacts are underrecognized due to measurement and valuation challenges. Cities in India are developing Heat Action Plans that combine physical cooling measures (such as urban...

In standard economics, individuals are rational actors and economic forces undermine institutions that impose large inefficiencies. The persistence of the caste system is evidence of the need for psychologically more realistic models of decision-making in economics. The caste system divides...

This paper estimates the welfare impact of rural electrification in India using nationally representative household panel survey data for 2005 and 2012. Analysis based on a propensity-score-weighted fixed-effects model finds that while electrification is associated with a broad range of social...

This paper analyzes analyze the impact of deregulatory reforms in India during the 1990s, which eliminated compulsory industrial licensing, on manufacturing firms' investment decisions. The paper finds an economically and statistically significant positive effect of delicensing on investment. It...

Experiments in the United States have found that pairs of individuals are generally able to form socially efficient conventions in coordination games of common interest in a remarkably short time. This paper shows that this ability is not universal. The paper reports the results of a field...