We examine the relationship between oil price windfalls and labor market regulation empirically through panel regressions in a sample of 83 countries spanning 1970-2014. We find that oil price windfall gains lead to a deregulation of the labor market in autocracies but have no effects in...

State decentralization is often promoted to improve public service delivery. However, its effects on forest conservation are ambiguous. Decentralization might not only improve local forest governance, but also change the incentives to promote agricultural expansion into forests. This study...

Solar adoption exploded until 2015 in Bangladesh, setting a precedent for electrifying previously unconnected areas worldwide. This study tries to measure the welfare effects of solar adoption using the three rounds of the Bangladesh Integrated Household Surveys. We applied both ordinary least...

The substantial literature on the existence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental degradation and economic growth-known as the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC)-has produced very mixed evidence. This largely depends on model and variable selection uncertainty. We address...

Trade and investment reforms in the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) since the mid-1980s have boosted natural resource-based exports, underpinning recent economic growth. A high proportion of the proceeds from these exports accrue directly to the government. Over the 8 years preceding...

Relative to other developing regions, developing Asia has experienced a slower decline in employment share in agriculture, compared to its output share; a rapid growth in labor and land productivity; and a shift from agricultural output from traditional to high-value products. The most successful...

This paper reports the survey findings that rice value chains are transforming in Bangladesh and India. The main elements of the transformation are as follows: First, rice value chains in both countries have begun to "geographically lengthen" and "intermediationally shorten." Second, farmers...

Two trends on yields have been observed for rice, wheat, and even edible oils in Asia. The deceleration of yield growth is one of these trends. The other relates to the differential yield increases across countries in the region. This study provides explanations for both trends and relates these...

From 1962 to 2013, the People's Republic of China's (PRC's)agricultural employment share declined from 82% to 31%. The transfer of workers out of low-productivity agriculture is a fundamental pillar of the PRC's aspirations to progress and eventually become a high-income economy. We hypothesize...

Structural changes in the global agrifood value chain have transformed food production in developing countries including Indonesia. One element of this is the spread of supermarket retailing. By increasing the demand for and returns to higher quality produce, this development has the potential...