In this article, we survey the theoretical literature investigating the role of gender inequality in economic development. The vast majority of theories reviewed suggest that gender inequality is a barrier to development, particularly over the long run. Among the many plausible mechanisms...

We conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of the empirical literature on the impact of gender inequality in education on per capita economic growth, including cross-country, time series, and sub-national growth regressions. Studies using male and female education as separate covariates...

The causes and consequences of high inequality in incomes, assets, and many aspects of well-being in Latin America have recently (re-)emerged as a central research and policy issue. However, many open questions remain that will be dealt with in the contributions to this volume. First, the...

Despite recent improvements in economic performance, undernutrition rates in Africa appear to have improved much less and rather inconsistently across the continent. We examine to what extent there is an empirical linkage between income growth and reductions of child undernutrition in Africa. We...

While it is widely presumed that development progress in so-called fragile states is lagging behind, only very limited empirical analysis exists that investigates to what extent the levels and trends in the MDGs differ significantly between fragile and other developing countries, and between...

This case study examines to what extent Bolivia has been able to achieve pro-poor growth, what the mechanisms of achieving (or failing to achieve) pro-poor growth have been, and what options are available to ensure higher rates of pro-poor growth. The analysis focuses on the period from 1989 to...

In the past twenty years, India's economy has grown at increasing rates and now belongs to the fastest-growing economies in the world. This paper examines drivers of female labor force participation in urban India between 1987 and 2004, showing a much more nuanced picture of female labor force...

Using changes in the possession of household assets over the past 20 years, several recent papers have argued that economic performance in Arica was substantially better than suggested by national income data and income poverty statistics, who suffer from well-known weaknesses. We scrutinize...

Martin Ravallion ("Why Don't We See Poverty Convergence?" American Economic Review, 102(1): 504-23; 2012) presents evidence against the existence of poverty convergence in aggregate data despite the conditional convergence of per capita income levels and the close linkage between growth and...

This thesis aims to narrow the research gap on informal enterprises, contributing to both the academic and policy debates. It provides empirical evidence related to two key questions: how much potential do informal firms have to contribute to economic growth, and employment creation? And, if...