This study reveals the pivotal impact of the prehistoric out-of-Africa migration on global variation in the degree of cultural diversity within ethnic and national populations. Drawing on novel diversity measures - encompassing folkloric and musical traditions among indigenous ethnic groups, as...

We analyze the spread of policies dealing with international trafficking in human beings. Arguing that countries are unlikely to make independent choices, we identify pressure, externalities and learning or emulation as plausible diffusion mechanisms for spatial dependence in anti-trafficking...

The gravity model has provided a tractable empirical framework to account for bilateral flows not only of manufactured goods, as in the case of merchandise trade, but also of financial flows. In particular, recent literature has emphasized the role of information costs in preventing larger...

Despite the importance attributed to the effects of diversity on the stability and prosperity of nations, the origins of the uneven distribution of ethnic and cultural fragmentation across countries have been underexplored. Building on the role of deeply-rooted biogeographical forces in...

According to recent UN projections more than 50 percent of the growth in world population over the next half century will be due to population growth in Africa. Given this, any policy that influences African demography will have a significant impact on the world distribution of income. In this...

This research explores the origins of the distribution of time preference across regions. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically, that geographical variations in natural land productivity and their impact on the return to agricultural investment have had a persistent effect on...

Two of the most salient trends surrounding the issue of migration and development over the last two decades are the large rise in remittances, and an increased flow of skilled migration. However, recent literature based on cross-country regressions has claimed that more educated migrants remit...

We investigate the relationship between remittances and migrants' education both theoretically and empirically, using original bilateral remittance data. At a theoretical level we lay out a model of remittances interacting migrants' human capital with two dimensions of immigration policy:...

This paper develops the theoretical foundations and the testable implications of the various mechanisms that have been proposed as possible triggers for the demographic transition. Moreover, it examines the empirical validity of each of the theories and their significance for the understanding...

This research argues that deep-rooted factors, determined tens of thousands of years ago, had a significant effect on the course of economic development from the dawn of human civilization to the contemporary era. It advances and empirically establishes the hypothesis that in the course of the...