This paper argues that legislative malapportionment, denoting a discrepancy between the share of legislative seats and the share of population held by electoral districts, serves as a tool for pre-democratic elites to preserve their political power and economic interests after a transition to...

This paper argues that legislative malapportionment, denoting a discrepancy between the share of legislative seats and the share of population held by electoral districts, serves as a tool for predemocratic elites to preserve their political power and economic interests after a transition to...

Economic development critically involves diversification and structural transformation?that is, the continued, dynamic reallocation of resources from less productive to more productive sectors and activities. This paper documents that, over an extended period, developing Asia has on average been...

This paper develops new estimates of export quality, based on bilateral data, which are far more extensive than previous efforts. The data cover 166 countries and hundreds of products over 1962-2014. The analysis finds that quality upgrading is particularly rapid during the early stages of...