It has been twenty years since Frankel (1979) offered the classic empirical support for the Dornbusch (1976) overshooting model against the simple monetary approach model, and almost that long since Driskill and Sheffrin (1981) uncovered some important inconsistencies between Frankel’s...

Small and informal firms account for a large share of employment in developing countries. The rapid expansion of microfinance services is based on the belief that these firms have productive investment opportunities and can enjoy high returns to capital if given the opportunity. However,...

This paper analyzes data from a randomized experiment on mean returns to capital in Sri Lankan micro-enterprises. The findings show greater returns among men than among women; indeed, returns were not different from zero for women. The authors explore different explanations for the lower returns...

Small and informal firms account for a large share of employment in developing countries. The rapid expansion of microfinance services is based on the belief that these firms have productive investment opportunities and can enjoy high returns to capital if given the opportunity. However,...

A large share of the world's poor is self-employed. Accurate measurement of profits from microenterprises is therefore critical for studying poverty and inequality, measuring the returns to education, and evaluating the success of microfinance programs. But a myriad of problems plague the...

This paper highlights the crucial role of demographic assumptions in models of the intergenerational transmission of wealth inequality. Specifically, we show that Alan Blinder's surprising predictions that bequest and mating practices can sustain but cannot cause wealth inequality are extremely...