Parochial politics is typically associated with poor leadership and low levels of public good provision. This paper explores the possibility that community involvement in politics need not necessarily worsen governance and, indeed, can be efficiency-enhancing when the context is appropriate....

We provide an explanation for the large spatial wage disparities and low male migration in India based on the trade-off between consumption-smoothing, provided by caste-based rural insurance networks, and the income-gains from migration. Our theory generates two key empirically-verified...

There are many economic environments in which an object is offered sequentially to prospective buyers. It is often observed that once the object for sale is turned down by one or more agents, those that follow do the same. One explanation that has been proposed for this phenomenon, which goes...

This research provides a single explanation for: (i) the persistence of malnutrition and (ii) the increased prevalence of metabolic disease (diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease) among normal weight individuals with economic development. Our model is based on a set point for BMI or...

We show using a theoretical framework that embeds a voting model in a general-equilibrium model of a rural economy with two interest groups defined by land ownership that the effects of democratization - a shift from control of public resources by the landed elite to a democratic regime with...

In this paper, we use new survey data on twins born in urban China, among whom many experienced the consequences of the forced mass rustication movement of the Chinesecultural revolution," to identify the distinct roles of altruism and guilt in affecting behavior within families. Based on a...

In this paper we use a new data set describing households with and without twin children in China to quantify the trade-off between the quality and quantity of children using the incidence of twins that for the first time takes into account effects associated with the lower birthweight and...

In this paper we use a new data set describing households with and without twin children in China to quantify the trade-off between the quality and quantity of children using the incidence of twins that for the first time takes into account effects associated with the lower birthweight and...

This paper uses survey data on employment immigrants in Australia and the United States to identify the main determinants of the size and skill composition of employment immigrants to developed countries. Our approach emphasizes the key roles of world prices of skills and country proximity. Our...

This paper develops a framework for estimating previous illegal experience among annual cohorts of new legal immigrants to the United States - using public-use administrative microdata alone, survey data alone, and the two jointly - and provides estimates for the FY 1996 cohort of new...