Clear rules that encourage meritocracy, and that include the evaluation of scholarly productivity, are slowly and unevenly taking hold in academic life in Latin America. While some countries have official rankings of political science departments, others rely only on informal assessments. In a third set of countries, we cannot even consider the competition because the market is dominated by a s...

This research analyzes manufacturing growth and decline across metropolitan and nonmetropolitan regions during the 1972–2002 period. We decompose real value added growth across local labor market areas in the lower 48 U.S. states into contributions from labor, capital, and total factor productivity. We then estimate a model describing the long-run growth of labor, capital, and productivity and ...

Cross-country studies associate financial liberalization with increases in aggregate productivity. This paper argues that this finding can be mainly attributed to reductions in distortions in capital markets that promote competition and encourage firms’ investments in technology. I first develop a simple small open economy model in which capital controls distort access to international borrowin...

Productivity often hinges on workers' ability to perform their jobs without worrying about injury. An internal assessment can help companies determine the reason for injuries that slow employees, stall processes, and result in escalating medical and indemnity costs. Implementing recommended changes and training employees to encourage their acceptance and use of new equipment can go a long way i...

In agrarian developing countries the natural environment is a key determinant of both poverty and nutritional status. Climate, terrain, and soil characteristics drive the agricultural system, determining in large part cropping patterns, choice of crops, yield rates, and overall productivity levels. The human resources crucial to agricultural productivity are also influenced by the natural envir...

Some rural areas in Kenya are characterized by a combination of low agricultural potential, high population density, poor market access, and un conducive institutional setting. Such areas have been classified as suffering from institutional isolation. This isolation on the adoption of soil conservation technologies and crop productivity in Machakos and Mbeere districts of Kenya, using Multinomi...

To encourage worker productivity, companies routinely adopt policies requiring employees to delay gratification. For example, offices might prohibit use of the internet for personal purposes during regular business hours. Recent work in social psychology, however, suggests that using willpower to delay gratification can negatively impact performance. We report data from an experiment where subj...