The social and economic consequences of poor mental health in the developing world are presumed to be significant, yet are largely under-researched. The authors argue that mental health modules can be meaningfully added to multi-purpose household surveys in developing countries, and used to...

The relationship between poverty and mental health has received considerable attention in the recent literature. However, the associations presented in existing studies typically rely on limited samples of individuals and on proxy indicators for poverty such as education, the lack of tap water,...

Using a database of 76,046 empirical economics papers published between 1985 and 2004 in the top 202 economics journals, the authors report two associations. First, per-capita research output on a given country increases with the country's per capita gross domestic product (GDP). Regressions...

During the past decade, the use of conditional cash transfers to increase investment in human capital has generated considerable excitement in both research and policy forums. Such schemes are being increasingly adopted in a number of contexts and countries to improve outcomes in health,...

Using a database of 76,046 empirical economics papers published between 1985 and 2005, we report two associations. First, research output on a given country increases with the country's population and wealth, yielding a strong correlation between per-capita research output and per-capita GDP....

Distances involved in accessing basic services can constitute a major barrier to development. This paper analyzes the relationship between the distance separating households from microfinance institutions' offices in Niger, and the low levels of development and performance of the microfinance...

This paper analyzes the spatial distribution of refugees over 1987-2017 and establishes several stylized facts about refugees today compared with past decades. Refugees still predominantly reside in developing countries neighboring their country of origin. However, compared to past decades,...

The differences in the levels of financial development between industrial and developing countries are large and persistent. Theoretical and empirical literature has argued that these differences are the source of comparative advantage and could therefore shape tradepatterns. This paper points...