The cultural and geographic proximity between two regions otherwise very distant (both in terms of factor endowment and of specialization pattern) makes the wage perceived as fair in the peripheral region dependent on the wage prevailing in the core region. As a consequence, the peripheral wage...

This paper presents an integrated view of economic growth, development traps, and economic geography. We explain why there is income convergence among some countries (neoclassical regime) and income divergence among others (poverty trap regime). Income convergence (divergence) and manufacturing...

Using data on agricultural traders in Madagascar, this paper shows that social network capital has a large effect on firm productivity. Better connected traders have significantly larger sales and value added than less connected traders after controlling for physical and human inputs as well as...

International capital markets are inherently unstable, and may precipitate an unnecessary currency crisis as a result of a failure by differentiated investors to coordinate their actions in response to a “mild” fundamental shock. This paper illustrates the point in a simple 3-period model,...

A growing strand of literature highlights that skilled migration may favour growth-enhancing technology transfer, trade and foreign direct investments between the source and the host economies of migrants (network effects). We explore a specific channel through which the possible \"diaspora...

This paper empirically analyzes both economic and non-economic determinants of attitudes toward immigrants, within and across countries. The two individual-level survey data sets used, covering a wide range of developed and developing countries, make it possible to test for interactive effects...

Firms in competitive markets are more likely achieve higher productivity. Indeed a better performance of multinationals and exporters with respect to domestic firms has been documented in the literature. The sources of these premia have however largely remained a black box: standard theoretical...