Remittances and Income Smoothing Due to inadequate savings and binding borrowing constraints, income volatility can make households in developing countries particularly susceptible to economic hardship. We examine the role of remittances in either alleviating or increasing household income volatility using Mexican household level data over the 2000 through 2008 period. We correct for reverse ca...

We study the long-term effect of becoming a refugee on employment, income and later mobility. After the World War II, Finland ceded a tenth of its land area to the Soviet Union. The entire population in the ceded areas were settled into the remaining parts of the country. Using individual-level panel data, we find that forced migration increased longterm income. The effect is strongest among me...

Most risk-sharing tests on developing country data are conducted at the level of the village; generally, the full risk-sharing hypothesis is rejected. This paper uses detailed data on all insurance networks within a village in Tanzania; networks are not clustered but largely overlapping. We test whether full risk-sharing occurs within these networks. While village level full-insurance cannot be...

Regional inequality is severe in China since regional development is uneven due to various initial conditions and government policies. We employ unit root tests allowing for structural breaks to alternative inequality measures from 1952 to 2000. Empirical results indicate that (1) the regional inequality is trend stationary with structural breaks rather than follow a random walk. Thus, ignoring...

Results We studied 143 children (92 M/51 F) aged 2.4 15.6 years. Negative results were found in 20 (14%) with Alternaria, 24 (16.8%) with Alt 1, and 19 with both (13.3%). There was a good correlation between the two determinations (r = 0.935, p <0.001). Overall the levels were higher for Alt a 1 (18.9 ± 24.4) than for Alternaria (15.4 ± 20.1). There were 97 cases (68%) with levels of Alt a 1 > ...

We use a policy experiment in Indonesia to show how local political boundaries affect ethnic tension. Redrawing district borders along group lines reduces conflict. However, the gains stability are undone or even reversed when new increase polarization. Greater polarization leads more violence around majoritarian elections but has little effect lower-stakes, proportional representation election...

This paper challenges the conventional wisdom that income and consumption inequality in Poland increased substantially following the economic transition in 1989–90. Using microdata from the 1985–92 Household Budget Surveys, we find that overall income inequality increased in 1989 but subsequently declined to pretransition levels. The distribution of consumption reveals a similar pattern. Social...

I evaluate a reform in India which sought to provide a second teacher to all one-teacher primary schools. The central government paid for 140,000 teachers, which is 8% of the pre-reform stock of primary-level teachers. I find that less than half of these teachers were sent to the intended place. Additionally, teachers per school did not increase and class size did not decrease. The only effect ...

This paper investigates the link between domestic income inequality and international trade using a dynamic model of occupational choice. After showing how systematic patterns of comparative advantage arise among countries with no di®erences in their economic fundamentals, I provide two results regarding trade liberalization describing the full transition dynamics. First, international income d...

We evaluate a “girl-friendly” primary school program in Burkina Faso using a regression discontinuity design. After 2.5 years, the program increased enrollment by 19 percentage points and increased test scores by 0.41 standard deviations. For those caused to attend school, scores increased by 2.2 standard deviations. Girls’ enrollment increased by 5 percentage points more than boys’ enrollment,...