Poverty continues to challenge Latin American and Caribbean countries, with approximately one in three people in the region in poverty and one in seven in extreme poverty. This paper provides up-to-date insights through analysis of who the poor are, where they are located, and how they live in...

This research examines the economic origins of Islam and uncovers two empirical regularities. First, Muslim countries, virtual countries and ethnic groups, exhibit highly unequal regional agricultural endowments. Second, Muslim adherence is systematically larger along the pre-Islamic trade...

The aim of this paper is to learn about some patterns of sectoral and industrial structural change of the Chinese economy over the 1995-2010 period. To such a purpose, we set up a quantitative methodology via input-output modelling, which allows us to decompose gross output into some key demand...

This paper is a continuation of our study of structural change in China and deals with the changes of domestic industrial/sectoral backward and forward linkages (i.e. the pull and push of the economy) as well as the changes in their domestic and imported components (i.e. via import...

We construct a multi-layer model of skills, occupations, and sectors. Technological progress among middle-skill occupations raises the employment shares and relative wages of lower- and higher-skill occupations (horizontal polarization), and those of managers over workers (vertical...

The emergence of slums is a common feature in a country's path towards urbanization, structural transformation and development. Based on salient micro and macro evidence of Brazilian labor, housing and education markets, we construct a simple model to examine the conditions for slums to emerge....

The positive association between the service sector share of output and per capita income is one of the best-known regularities in all of growth and development economics. Yet there is less than complete agreement on the nature of that association. Here we identify two waves of service sector...

Geography has long been considered as a fundamental prerequisite for economic development and growth. In recent years, a growing number of papers have considered the role of physical geography as a determinant of regional growth and development by considering it as a source of "intrinsic...

Energy-based economic development (EBED) can provide economic, social and environmental benefits related to national economic development and sustainable growth activities. As both policy and research interests in responsible mechanisms for economic development grow, EBED benefits are becoming...