The paper estimates an empirical relation based on Krugman’s “technological gap” model to explore the influence of the pattern of international trade and production on the overall productivity growth of a developing country. A key result is that increased import competition in medium-growth (but not in lowor highgrowth) manufacturing sectors enhances overall productivity growth. The authors als...

The rise of Western Europe after 1500 is due largely to growth in countries with access to the Atlantic Ocean and with substantial trade with the New World, Africa, and Asia via the Atlantic. This trade and the associated colonialism affected Europe not only directly, but also indirectly by inducing institutional change. Where “initial” political institutions (those established before 1500) pla...

Are happiness patterns structurally the same when comparing poor and rich countries? Using cross-sectional data from the SALDRU93 survey, we show that the relationships between subjective well-being and socioeconomic variables have a similar structure and is U-shaped in age in South Africa as in developed countries. Well-being rises with income. Unemployment is detrimental to reported well-bein...

The world’s biggest and arguably most aggressive form of employment based affirmative action policy for minorities exists in India. This paper exploits the institutional features of federally mandated employment quota policy to examine its effect on labor market outcomes of two distinct minority groups. My main finding is that a 1-percent increase in employment quota significantly increases the...

Anthropologists have documented substantial and persistent differences in food preferences across social groups. My paper asks whether such food cultures can constrain caloric intake? I first document that inter-state migrants within India consume fewer calories per Rupee of food expenditure compared to their neighbors. Second, I show that migrants bring their origin-state food preferences with...

Entrepreneurship and Economic Development: Theory, Evidence and Policy This paper provides an overview of the state of the art of the intersection of development economics and entrepreneurship. Given the relative neglect of entrepreneurship by development scholars it deals with (i) recent theoretical insights from the intersection of entrepreneurship and development studies; (ii) the empirical ...

Water saving agricultural technologies are a potentially important but under utilized lever to conserve groundwater in India. Technologies like laser levelers have high private returns and lead to water savings, yet the adoption rates are not very high. In order to provide insight for the design of policies to promote adoption, we conducted a survey based study about factors that influence the ...

We provide a dynamic theory of endogenous constitutions by relating the emergence of political institutions to different development patterns. These scenarios give rise to different constitutional designs depending on the relative power and interests of the different population groups during the transition. We focus in particular on efficiency and redistribution aspects the public sector. Const...

Missing data is a major problem in empirical development economics, as it may entail efficiency losses as well as biased results. This is an issue within the literature that investigates the effect of foreign aid on welfare. Using multiple imputation techniques, we address these problems and find lower aid effectiveness than previous studies suggest. In addition, imputation allows for compariso...