This paper investigates the economic and social consequences of sovereign default on external debt. We focus on the crises' impact on real per capita GDP, infant mortality, life expectancy, poverty headcounts, and calorie supply per capita. After methodological exclusions, the sample covers 221...

We study how financial development affects economic development and wage inequality. We use a large expansion of government-owned banks into Brazilian cities with low bank branch coverage and combine it with data on the universe of employees from 2000-2014. We find that higher financial...

Blended finance---the use of public and philanthropic funding to crowd in private capital---is a potential way to finance a more sustainable world. While blended finance holds the promise of being catalytic in mobilizing vast amounts of private capital, little is known about this practice. In...

We estimate spillovers from public funding for health research in the context of the NIH's Fogarty International Center's AIDS International Training and Research Program, which aims to strengthen scientific capacity in AIDS endemic countries by providing African researchers with training...

We study the impact of the Panama Canal on the development of Canada's manufacturing sector in the years from 1900 to 1939. Using newly digitized county-level data from the Census of Manufactures and a market-access approach, we exploit the plausibly exogenous nature of this historical episode...

Previous work on transportation investments has focused on average impacts in high- and middle-income countries. We estimate average and heterogeneous effects in a poor continent, Africa, using roads and cities data spanning 50 years in 39 countries. Using changes in market access due to distant...

Proponents of trade liberalization argue that it will force firms to produce closer to the production possibility frontier and that the frontier will move out faster. In particular, plants that export will achieve a higher productivity level. However intuitive the argument, empirical evidence is...

We examine whether shared collective experiences can help build a national identity, by looking at the impact of national football teams' victories in sub- Saharan Africa. Combining individual survey data with information on official matches played between 2000 and 2015, we find that individuals...

The single largest item in the United States foreign aid health budget is antiretroviral therapy (ART) for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Many supply- and demand-side factors in sub-Saharan Africa could cause smaller than expected epidemiological effects of this at scale drug provision. We provide...

Interventions targeting adolescent girls are seen as a key component in the fight to break the cycle of poverty in developing countries. Policies that enable them to reach their full potential can have a strong impact not only on their own wellbeing, but also on that of future generations. This...