We examine the ongoing transition from centrally planned to market agriculture in rural China. In particular, we examine the devolution of land rights from village governments to villagers and the corresponding evolution of tenure security in agricultural land. We find econometric support for...

This study seeks to explain the differences in infrastructure quality across China’s villages. Using primary data on three main types of infrastructure projects in rural China, we find that a.) between-project within-village quality differences are small and project design has little...

A key issue in political economy concerns the accountability that governance structures impose on public officials and how elections and representative democracy influences the allocation of public resources. In this paper we exploit a unique survey data set from nearly 2450 randomly selected...

In this paper, our overall goal is to understand how effective access to infrastructure is in reducing poverty in PNG. To meet this goal, we examine poverty in PNG, and seek to show the relationship between poverty and access to infrastructure and then identify the determinants of poverty. In...

What explains the spectacular increases in inequality of disposable income in transitional economies of Central and Eastern Europe? There are at least two possible explanations. First, the pre-tax distribution of income became more unequal because of the shift to a market economy. Second, the...

This paper introduces a significant new multi-disciplinary collection of studies of poverty dynamics, presenting the reader with the latest thinking by a group of researchers who are leaders in their respective disciplines. It argues that there are three main fronts on which progress must be...