"While there is extensive knowledge about how to design fiscal decentralization policies, considerably less is understood about how a decentralization program should be sequenced and implemented. Countries embarking on decentralization often struggle with decisions about the essential components...

"The authors determine how time delays affect international trade using newly collected World Bank data on the days it takes to move standard cargo from the factory gate to the ship in 126 countries. They estimate a modified gravity equation, controlling for endogeneity and remoteness. On...

"The differences in the levels of financial development between industrial and developing countries are large and persistent. Theoretical and empirical literature has argued that these differences are the source of comparative advantage and could therefore shape trade patterns. This paper points...

"The authors analyze whether financial compensation is preferable to the current system of dispute settlement in the World Trade Organization that permits member countries to impose retaliatory tariffs in response to trade violations committed by other members. They show that monetary fines are...

"The paper presents a nontechnical summary of the current state of debate on the measurement and implications of global inequality (inequality between citizens of the world). It discusses the relationship between globalization and global inequality. And it shows why global inequality matters and...

"This paper asks whether new technological capacity for producing and exporting additional products provides incentives for greater capital accumulation, without being fully reflected in a higher rate of total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Using a highly disaggregated data set of each...

"The authors analyze the relationship between international trade and the quality of economic institutions such as contract enforcement, rule of law, or property rights. The literature on institutions has argued, both empirically and theoretically, that larger firms care less about good...

"The authors analyze recent efforts at international cooperation to limit illegal migration, particularly through the use of legal migration avenues like guest worker schemes. They show that while guest worker schemes may be desirable as an avenue of international migration, they are an...

"One of the recurring themes in the sustainability literature has been the legitimacy of using an economic framework to account for natural resources. This paper examines the potential for substituting between different inputs in the generation of income, where the inputs include natural...

"Theories of poverty traps stand in sharp contrast to the view that anybody can make it through hard work and thrift. However, empirical detection of poverty traps is complicated by the lack of long panels, measurement error, and attrition. This paper shows how dynamic pseudo-panel methods can...