This proposal involves the establishment of ‘welfare accounts’ for every person in a country. There are four accounts: a retirement account (covering pensions), an unemployment account (covering unemployment support), a human capital account (covering education and training), and a health...

We conduct the first systematic evaluation of the world’s largest community-based development program--China’s flagship poverty alleviation program began in 2001 which finances public investments in designated poor villages based on participatory village planning. We use matching methods and...

Institutions in developing countries, particularly those inherited from the colonial period, are often thought to be subject to strong inertia. This study presents the results of a unique randomized trial testing whether these institutions can be reformed through incremental administrative...

This paper is a first attempt to evaluate the economic effects of the Marshall Plan. We find that US aid had a significant impact on Europe's recovery from World War II. The recipients of large amounts of Marshall aid recovered significantly faster than other industrial countries. Strikingly,...

This paper examines the effects of three alternative rules for public investment on output growth in a model with private and public capital. The rules considered are: (i) a fixed ratio of public capital to output; (ii) a fixed growth rate for public capital; and (iii) a fixed ratio of public...

This Paper develops a methodology to compute transport costs at low infra-country geographical levels. This simultaneously accounts for the real network infrastructure, a distance cost (fuel, repair, tolls), and a time opportunity cost (wages, insurance and general charges, vehicle use). When...

This Paper compares the observed distribution of the stock of infrastructures across the Spanish regions with the optimal allocation derived from a planning problem in which the observed degree of ex-post redistribution is taken as given. The results suggest that Spanish public investment policy...

We estimate the multiplier relying on differences in spending in infrastructure across Italian provinces and an instrument identifying investment changes that are large and exogenous to local cyclical conditions. We derive our instrument from the Law mandating the interruption of public work on...

This paper analyses the determinants of public expenditures allocated to investment. We perform welfare analysis in an overlapping generations model with public consumption, public investment, debt and taxes. The optimal public investment share depends positively on the productive contribution...

In many situations the individuals who can generate some output must enter a contest for appropriating this output. This Paper analyses the investment incentives of such agents and the role of incumbency advantages in the contest. Depending on the advantages, an increase in the productivity of...