"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...

"Are natural resources a blessing or a curse? Bravo-Ortega and De Gregorio present a model in which natural resources have a positive effect on the level of income and a negative effect on its growth rate. The positive and permanent effect on income implies a welfare gain. There is a growth...

"Chen and Dahlman assess the effects of knowledge on economic growth. By using an array of indicators, each of which represents an aspect of knowledge, as independent variables in cross-section regressions that span 92 countries for the period 1960 to 2000, they show that knowledge is a...

The scope of this report is twofold. First, it documents skills gaps and mismatches and attempts to understand the reasons for them. Second, it provides a framework for thinking about skills development, drawing on international best practices, with the intent of stimulating further discussion....

"In contrast with a growing literature on the drivers of aggregate volatility in developing countries, its consequences in terms of individual incomes have received less attention. This paper looks at the impact of cyclical output fluctuations and extreme output events (crises) on unemployment,...

"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...

"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...

"The authors analyze general equilibrium relationships between trade policy and the household distribution of income, decomposing social welfare into real income level and variance components and emphasizing Gini and Atkinson indexes. They embed these inequality-adjusted social welfare functions...

"The authors examine the distributional implications of selective compliance in sample surveys, whereby households with different incomes are not equally likely to participate. They discuss poverty and inequality measurement implications for monotonically decreasing and inverted-U...