In this paper, we investigate the role of young adult mortality on child labour and educational decisions. We argue that mortality risks are a major source of risks in returns to education in developing countries. We show that, in the absence of appropriate insurance mechanisms, the level of...

Research on human development has received considerable importance in India from both academics and a policy point of view. However, previous studies on human development have mainly focused on the equity aspects of development without considering the resource base. The current study seeks to...

Some have suggested that housing policy, embodied by the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and affordable housing goals of the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), caused the subprime crisis. We examine if these programs led to worse mortgage outcomes using two approaches. The first examines...

How far has English already spread? How much further can we expect it to go? In response to the first question, this chapter tries to identify the areas of life where English already serves as a lingua franca in the world (more or less) and those where the language faces sharp competition and...

How has wellbeing evolved over time and across regions? How does the West compare to the Rest? What explains their differences? These questions are addressed using an historical index of human development. A sustained improvement in wellbeing has taken place since 1870. The absolute gap between...

In a quantitative model of Social Security with endogenous health, I argue that Social Security increases the aggregate health spending of the economy because it redistributes resources to the elderly whose marginal propensity to spend on health is high. I show by using computational experiments...

This study investigates Korea's motivations for foreign aid allocation, analyzing panel data from over 180 countries for the last 20 years. The results show that Korea's aid allocation reflects both recipient needs and Korea's own national interests but does not consistently consider aid...

The practice of informal child fostering is pervasive in the Caribbean and other parts of the developing world. While the reasons for fostering out a child are clear it is not clear why an individual would accept the task of caring for someone else's child. In this paper we argue that acceptance...

Although the effect of the migration process on the family has been extensively studied, much less attention has been given to the impact of migration on children, especially those children who are left behind. Children whose parents have migrated are usually looked after by members of their...