The paper explores the effect of technological specialisation on economic growth within a balance-of-payments-constrained growth model. We find that countries that are specialised in fast-growing technologies experience above average rates of growth due to the positive effects on international competitiveness. Moreover, we find that innovation, imitation and investment affect countries’ perform...

In this paper, by employing the Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) techniques and Chinese provincial level data from 1991 to 2003, we empirically investigate the relationship between finance and growth in post-reform China. We find that financial development significantly promotes economic growth in coastal regions but not in inland regions; the weak finance-growth nexus in inland provinces has...

This paper analyzes an informal financial institution that brings heterogeneous agents together in groups. We analyze decentralized matching into these groups, and the equilibrium composition of participants that consequently arises. We find that participants sort remarkably well across the competing groups, and that they re-sort immediately following an unexpected exogenous regulatory change. ...

This paper examines the relationship between household income shocks and child labor. In particular, we investigate the extent to which transitory income shocks lead to increases in child labor and whether household asset holdings mitigate the effects of these shocks. Using data from a household panel survey in Tanzania, we find that both relationships are significant. We investigate mechanisms...

This paper addresses how financial development affects product quality and firmlevel exports depending on the firm’s productivity. To this goal, I propose a heterogeneous firms model with endogenous quality, credit constraints and heterogeneous productivity of a firm. I show theoretically and confirm empirically that lower financial constraints result in higher-quality output and higher exports...

The nullification of slave wealth after the US Civil War (1861–1865) was one largest episodes compression in history. We document that White Southern households owned more slaves 1860 lost substantially by 1870, relative to had been equally wealthy before war. Yet, their sons almost entirely recovered from this shock 1900, and grandsons completely converged 1940. Marriage networks connections o...

This paper builds a new microdatabase that covers 100 countries at all income levels and long-run time series in the United States (1870–2010) Mexico ( 1960–2010) to document how modern tax system arises over development. I establish set of stylized facts, which show exemption threshold decreases distribution as country develops, tracking growth employee share employment occurs gradually furthe...