This paper seeks to explain the U-shaped relationship between farm productivity and farm scale - the initial fall in productivity as farm size increases from its lowest levels and the continuous upward trajectory as scale increases after a threshold - observed across the world and in low-income...

Data from two surveys of twins in China are used to contribute to an improved understanding of the role of economic development in affecting gender differences in the trends in, levels of, and returns to schooling observed in China and in many developing countries in recent decades. In...

Although forests have diminished globally over the past 400 years, forest cover has increased in some areas, including India in the last two decades. Aggregate time-series evidence on forest growth rates and income growth across countries and within India and a newly-assembled data set that...

We use new survey-based data on siblings to assess the potential role of bequests in either redistributing income among siblings or affecting offspring behavior as implied by prominent models. The data are not focused on the upper tail of the wealth distribution and include both own and sib...

We exploit recent molecular genetics evidence on the genetic basis of arsenic excretion and unique information on family links among respondents living in different environments from a large panel survey within a theoretical framework incorporating optimizing behavior to uncover the hidden costs...

We examine the role of ethnic politics at the local level in supplying public goods within a framework that incorporates two sides to ethnic groups: an inclusionary side associated with internal cooperation and an exclusionary side associated with the disregard for others. The inclusionary...

This paper studies how traditional networks in rural and urban India have responded to economic development. In rural areas, the impact of the Green Revolution on within-network inequality has resulted in defection by the wealthiest members of caste-based social insurance networks. In Bombay,...

The recent availability of longitudinal data from low-income countries makes possible for the first time the identification of the consequences of growth-augmenting innovations for household income change. However, it has become increasingly recognized that both the analysis and design of panel...