-
作者：Sheng, Liugang; Yang, Dennis Tao
作者单位：Chinese University of Hong Kong; University of Virginia
摘要：This paper presents theory and evidence that institutional reforms in developing countries can help expand their product varieties in exports. Our model suggests that relaxing ownership restrictions on foreign direct investment, improving contract enforcement, and reducing offshoring cost can induce multinational companies to produce new products in host developing countries. Consistent with these theoretical predictions, we find empirical evidence that ownership liberalization, judicial quali...
-
作者：Gershman, Boris
作者单位：American University
摘要：This paper examines the relationship between witchcraft beliefs, a deep-rooted cultural phenomenon, and various elements of social capital. Using novel survey data from nineteen countries in Sub-Saharan Africa we establish a robust negative association between the prevalence of witchcraft beliefs and multiple measures of trust which holds after accounting for country fixed effects and potential confounding factors at the individual, regional, and ethnic-group levels. This finding extends to ot...
-
作者：Cattaneo, Cristina; Peri, Giovanni
作者单位：Fondazione Mattei; Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC); University of California System; University of California Davis
摘要：Climate change, especially the warming trend experienced in recent years by several countries, could affect agricultural productivity. As a consequence the income of rural populations will change, and with it the incentives for people to remain in rural areas. Using data from 115 countries between 1960 and 2000, we analyze the effect of differential warming trends across countries on the probability of either migrating out of the country or from rural to urban areas. We find that higher temper...
-
作者：Gervais, Olivier; Schembri, Lawrence; Suchanek, Lena
作者单位：Bank of Canada
摘要：In emerging-market economies, real exchange rate adjustment is critical for achieving a sustainable current account position and thereby for helping to maintain macroeconomic and financial stability. This study examines two related hypotheses: (i) that real exchange rate adjustment promotes the rebalancing of the current account and (ii) that a flexible nominal exchange rate facilitates real exchange rate adjustment and thus the rebalancing of the current account. Evidence from an event-study ...
-
作者：Quy-Toan Do; Levchenko, Andrei A.; Raddatz, Claudio
作者单位：The World Bank; University of Michigan System; University of Michigan; National Bureau of Economic Research; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); Central Bank of Chile
摘要：We analyze theoretically and empirically the impact of comparative advantage in international trade on fertility. We build a model in which industries differ in the extent to which they use female relative to male labor, and countries are characterized by Ricardian comparative advantage in either female-labor or male-labor intensive goods. The main prediction of the model is that countries with comparative advantage in female-labor intensive goods are characterized by lower fertility. This is ...
-
作者：Baland, Jean-Marie; Bonjean, Isabelle; Guirkinger, Catherine; Ziparo, Roberta
作者单位：University of Namur
摘要：In the absence of well-developed markets for credit and insurance, extended families play a major role as a traditional system of mutual help. However these arrangements have important consequences on economic choices. In this paper, we use first hand data from Western Cameroon to explore this question. We find that the large majority of transfers follow a given pattern whereby elder siblings support their younger siblings in the early stages of their lives who in turn reciprocate by supportin...
-
作者：Glewwe, Paul; Park, Albert; Zhao, Meng
作者单位：University of Minnesota System; University of Minnesota Twin Cities; Hong Kong University of Science & Technology; Gakushuin University
摘要：About 10% of primary school students in developing countries have poor vision, but very few of them wear glasses. Almost no research examines the impact of poor vision on school performance, and simple OLS estimates could be biased because studying harder may adversely affects one's vision. This paper presents results from a randomized trial in Western China that offered free eyeglasses to rural primary school students. Our preferred estimates, which exclude township pairs for which students i...
-
作者：Neuenkirch, Matthias; Neumeier, Florian
作者单位：Universitat Trier; Philipps University Marburg
摘要：In this paper, we analyze the effect of US economic sanctions on the target countries' poverty gap during the period 1982-2011. Econometrically, we employ a matching approach to account for differences in the countries' economic and political environment and the likelihood of being exposed to US sanctions. Our results indicate that US sanctions are adversely affecting those living in poverty as we observe a 3.8 percentage point (pp) larger poverty gap in sanctioned countries compared to a cont...
-
作者：Presbitero, Andrea F.
作者单位：International Monetary Fund
摘要：A recent trend in several low-income developing countries has been a rapid scaling-up of public investment. It is argued that in the presence of limited absorptive capacity countries are not able- in terms of skills, institutions, and management - to translate additional public investment into sustained output growth. We test for the presence of absorptive capacity constraints using a large dataset of World Bank investment projects, approved between 1970 and 2007 in 80 countries. Our results i...
-
作者：Majlesi, Kaveh
作者单位：Lund University
摘要：Despite the perceived importance of labor market opportunities in shaping married women's outside option, and their bargaining power within households as a result, this link has received very little empirical attention. Using longitudinal data on who makes the decision on a wide range of issues within Mexican households and data from the administrative records of the Mexican Social Security Institute, this paper identifies the effects of relative changes in labor market opportunities for men a...
