This paper introduces new data on climatic conditions to empirical tests of growth theories. We find that, since 1960, temperate countries have converged towards high levels of income while tropical nations have converged towards various income levels associated with economic scale and the...

This paper examines an open economy model in which equilibrium unemployment depends on capacity in the traded-goods sector. The model is estimated using U.K. quarterly data and compared with alternative concepts of equilibrium unemployment based on labour market variables (as in Layard and...

A key distinction among theories of civil war is between those that are built upon motivation and those that are built upon feasibility. We analyze a comprehensive global sample of civil wars for the period 1965-2004 and subject the results to a range of robustness tests. The data constitute a...

This paper is concerned with the Bayesian estimation of non-linear stochastic differential equations when only discrete observations are available. The estimation is carried out using a tuned MCMC method, in particular a blocked Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, by introducing auxiliary points and...

Using detailed data from rural Pakistan, this paper investigates whether human capital, learning by doing, gender, and one`s status within the family - heretoforth family status - affect the division of labor within households. Results suggest the presence of returns to individual specialization...

This paper investigates the relationship between poverty and crime. Following a disputed presidential election, fuel supply to the highlands of Madagascar was severely curtailed in early 2002, resulting in a massive - if temporary - increase in poverty. Using original survey data collected in...

It has long been believed that commodity price variability causes problems for primaryproducing developing countries, but there is less agreement about which particular manifestations of commodity price movements matter to developing countries. This paper tests the effects of ex post shocks and...

In this paper we introduce a small Keynesian model of economic growth which is centered around two advanced types of Phillips curves, one for money wages and one for prices, both being augmented by perfect myopic foresight and supplemented by a measure of the medium-term inflationary climate...

This paper exploits unique data that permits the matching of students` test scores in different subjects to the teachers that teach those subjects. Within-pupil (across-subject, rather than across-time) variation is used to examine whether the characteristics of different subject teachers are...