Evidence on Individual Preferences for Longevity Risk The standard model of intertemporal choice assumes risk neutrality toward the length of life: due to additivity, agents are not sensitive to a mean preserving spread in the length of life. Using a survey fielded in the RAND American Life Panel (ALP), this paper provides empirical evidence on possible deviation from risk neutrality with respe...

Using detailed household-level data from Malawi on physical quantities of agricultural outputs and inputs, we measure farm total factor productivity (TFP), controlling for land quality, rain, transitory shocks. We find that operated size capital are essentially unrelated to TFP, implying substantial misallocation. The output gain a reallocation factors their efficient use among existing farmers...

In this paper we employ techniques developed in spatial econometrics to analyse spatial patterns of technology diffusion, to detect clusters and to estimate theoretical models that incorporate space explicitly. These techniques correct for misspecifications resulting from the omission of spatial linkages in standard empirical models of economic growth. Our dataset consists of TFP estimates for ...

We endogenize total factor productivity in a neoclassical model with increasing returns to scale. We obtain multiple steady-state equilibria with an arbitrarily small degree of increasing returns to scale. While the most productive …rms operate across all the steady states, in a poverty trap less productive …rms operate as well. This results in lower average …rm productivity and total factor pr...

We present a version of the neoclassical model with an endogenous industry structure. We obtain multiple steady-state equilibria with an arbitrarily small degree of increasing returns to scale. While the most productive …rms operate across all the steady states, in a poverty trap less productive …rms operate as well. This results in lower average …rm productivity and total factor productivity. ...

Does Gender Matter for Firm Performance? Evidence from Eastern Europe and Central Asia Using 2005 firm level data for 26 ECA countries, this paper estimates performance gaps between maleand female-owned businesses, while controlling for their location by industry and country. We find that female entrepreneurs have significantly smaller scale of operations (as measured by sales revenues) and are...

We reassess the convergence properties of the cross-country distribution of income and its determinants using the dataset constructed by Klenow and Rodriguez-Clare (2005) and our updated version of the same data. Consistent with the literature, the ergodic distribution of output per worker features separate convergence clubs. In contrast to previous …ndings, productivity display convergence in ...