Increasing the trade integration of developing countries can make a vital contribution to boosting shared prosperity, but it also exposes producers and consumers to exogenous shocks that alter relative prices, sometimes positively and sometimes negatively. This paper discusses the short-run...

Like many emerging economies, South Africa has identified exports as an engine for more inclusive, job-intensive growth. However, employment growth did not follow the substantial export growth that South Africa experienced in the 2000s. This paper uses a newly developed World Bank database --...

This paper revisits and expands the evidence on the impact of trade shocks on intra-state conflict with a large sample of developing countries in the 1960-2010 period. The results suggest that increases in the prices of a country's exported commodities raise the country's risk of civil conflict...

Deeper regional integration can be beneficial especially for regions along international borders. It can open up new markets on opposite sides of borders and give consumers wider access to cheaper goods. This paper uses data from five contiguous districts of India, Nepal, and Bangladesh in the...

Using data on Israeli closures inside the West Bank, this paper provides new evidence on the labor market effects of conflict-induced restrictions to mobility. To identify the effects, the analysis exploits the fact that the placement of physical barriers by Israel was exogenous to local labor...

Despite the large fiscal footprint of corporate tax incentives, limited causal evidence exists on their impact on economic outcomes. This paper helps fill this gap by exploiting the phasing out of a large income tax exemption scheme for export- oriented firms in Tunisia. Using data on the...

This paper evaluates Tunisia's "Startup Act," a policy initiative to foster innovative firms through a "start-up" label and a bundle of incentives, including reduced social security contributions, corporate tax exemptions, easier access to foreign exchange, and simplified customs procedures....

Although a high rate of urbanization and a high incidence of rural poverty are two distinct features of many developing countries, there is little knowledge of the effects of the former on the latter. Using a large sample of Indian districts from the 1983-1999 period, the authors find that...