"Prevailing measures of relative poverty put an implausibly high weight on relative deprivation, such that measured poverty does not fall when all incomes grow at the same rate. This stems from the (implicit) assumption in past measures that very poor people incur a negligible cost of social...

"The empirical literature on finance and development suggests that countries with better developed financial systems experience faster economic growth. Financial development-as captured by size, depth, efficiency, and reach of financial systems-varies sharply around the world, with large...

Not surprisingly, extreme negative export price shocks reduce growth. But these adverse effects can be mitigated through offsetting increases in aid. Indeed, targeting aid to countries experiencing negative shocks appears to be even more important for aid effectiveness than targeting aid to...

Analysis of a panel data set for 1976-98 shows that on balance stock markets and banks positively influence economic growth; findings that do not result from biases induced by simultaneity, omitted variables, or unobserved country-specific effects

New tools allow one to study the incidence of economic growth by initial level of income, and to measure the rate of pro-poor growth in an economy. An application is provided using data for China in the 1990s

Many analysts decry the level of investment in Africa, saying it is too low. But there is no evidence, in cross-country data or in microeconomic data from Tanzania, that private and public capital is productive in Africa. In that sense, investment in Africa may be viewed as too high