Using panel data from villages in rural Ethiopia, the paper studies the determinants of consumption growth (1989-97), based on a microgrowth model, controlling for heterogeneity. Consumption grew substantially, but with diverse experiences across villages and individuals. A key focus is on...

In this paper, we use firm-level panel data for the manufacturing sector in four African countries to estimate the effect of exporting on efficiency. Estimating simultaneously a production function and an export regression that control for unobserved firm effects, we find both significant...

Households in developing countries use a variety of informal mechanisms to cope with risk, including mutual support and risk-sharing. These mechanisms cannot avoid that they remain vulnerable to shocks. Public programs in the form of food aid distribution and food-for-work programs are meant to...

Usage of health facilities in Ethiopia is among the lowest in the world; raising usage rates is probably critical for improving health outcomes. The government has diagnosed the principal problem as the lack of primary health facilities and is devoting a large share of the health budget to...

Most risk-sharing tests on developing country data are conducted at the level of the village; generally, the full risk-sharing hypothesis is rejected. This paper uses detailed data on all insurance networks within a village in Tanzania; networks are not clustered but largely overlapping. We test...