The credible identification of endogenous peer group effects - i.e. social multiplier or feedback effects - has long eluded social scientists. We argue that such effects are most credibly identified by a randomly assigned social program which operates at differing intensities within and between...

This paper utilizes the feature of the CHDS data from New Zealand that children are sampled for extremely long individual histories of their class size experiences as well as their scholastic and early labor market outcomes. Our interest is to explore the full set of empirical implications of...

For policy purposes, it is important to understand the relative efficacy of various methods to target the poor. Recently, participatory methods have received particular attention. We examine the effectiveness of a hybrid two-step process that combines a participatory wealth ranking and a...

An extensive literature uses anthropometric measures, typically heights, to draw inferences about living standards in the past. This literature's influence reaches beyond economic history; the results of historical heights research appear as crucial components in development economics and...

The variance in the logarithms of per capita GDP in purchasing-power-parity prices increased prices increased in the world from 1960 to 1968 and decreased since the mid 1970s. In the later period the convergence in intercountry incomes more than offset any increase in within country inequality....

We explore the extent to which the huge race gap in wealth can be explained with properly constructed income and demographic variables. In some instances we explain the entire wealth gap with income and demographics provided that we estimate the wealth model on a sample of whites. However, we...

We use data from marriage records in Murcia, Spain, in the 18th century to study the role of women in social mobility in the pre-modern era. Our measure of socioeconomic standing is identification as a don or doña, an honorific denoting high, though not neccesarily, noble status. We show that...

Resource transfers among households have received considerable interest among economists in recent years. Two of the main reasons for the surge of interest in household transfers are the information on human nature conveyed by transfer behavior and the implication on income redistribution policy...

Commitment devices for savings could benefit those with self-control as well as familial or spousal control issues. We find evidence to support both motivations. We examine the impact of a commitment savings product in the Philippines on household decision making power and selfperception of...

Female empowermentʺ has increasingly become a policy goal, both as an end to itself and as a means to achieving other development goals. Microfinance in particular has often been argued, but not without controversy, to be a tool for empowering women. Here, using a randomized controlled trial,...