We develop a consistent and comprehensive theoretical framework for assessing whether economic growth is compatible with sustaining well-being over time. The framework focuses on whether a comprehensive measure of wealth - one that accounts for natural capital and human capital as well as...

With rapidly declining fertility and increased longevity the age structure of the labor force in developing countries has changed rapidly. Changing relative supply of workers by age group, and by educational attainment, can have profound effects on labor costs. Their impacts on earnings have...

Can part of Africa's current underdevelopment be explained by its slave trades? To explore this question, I use data from shipping records and historical documents reporting slave ethnicities to construct estimates of the number of slaves exported from each country during Africa's slave trades....

Using country- and region-level data, I investigate the effect of HIV/AIDS on fertility in Africa during 1985-2000. Results differ depending on the variation used and the estimation method. Between estimates that exploit cross-sectional variation suggest a positive significant effect of HIV/AIDS...

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...

Brazil has had a long period of high inflation. It peaked around 100 percent per year in 1964, decreased until the first oil shock (1973), but accelerated again afterward, reaching levels above 100 percent on average between 1980 and 1994. This last period coincided with severe balance of...

After the economic reforms that followed the National Revolution of the 1950s, Bolivia seemed positioned for sustained growth. Indeed, it achieved unprecedented growth from 1960 to 1977. The rapid accumulation of debt due to persistent deficits and a fixed exchange rate policy during the 1970s...

Developing countries made considerable gains during the first decade of the 21st century. Their economies grew at unprecedented rates, resulting in large reductions in extreme poverty and a significant expansion of the middle class. But more recently that progress has slowed with an economic...

How integrated are labor markets within a country? Labor mobility is key to the integration of local labor markets and therefore to understanding the efficacy of policies to reduce regional inequality. We present a comprehensive framework for understanding migration decisions, focusing on the...