This paper asks what low-income countries can expect from growth in terms of happiness. It interprets the set of available international evidence pertaining to the relationship between income growth and subjective well-being. Consistent with the Easterlin paradox, higher income is always...

The purpose of this paper is to provide a contribution to the identification of the role of entrepreneurship in economic growth by mapping out: 1) alternative ways of looking at entrepreneurship, distinguishing 'creative destruction' from simple 'turbulence'; 2) the different microeconomic...

This paper examines fungibility as a possible explanation for the "missing link" between foreign aid and economic growth. The composition of aid plays a crucial role in determining the composition of government spending and, consequently, the magnitude of fungibility and its impact on growth....

We analyze the economic consequences for less developed countries of investing in female health. In so doing we introduce a novel micro-founded dynamic general equilibrium framework in which parents trade off the number of children against investments in their education and in which we allow for...

This paper tests the hypothesis that a high and persistent exposure to infectious diseases increases the likelihood of civil conflicts. Diseases that are difficult to prevent and treat may reduce the opportunity costs of violent activities, both directly and indirectly. The analysis exploits new...

This paper provides an overview of the state of the art of the intersection of development economics and entrepreneurship. Given the relative neglect of entrepreneurship by development scholars it deals with (i) recent theoretical insights from the intersection of entrepreneurship and...

International migration offers individuals and their families the potential to experience immediate and large gains in their incomes, and offers a large number of other positive benefits to the sending communities and countries. However, there are also concerns about potential costs of...

This paper examines micro-level channels of how financial development can affect macroeconomic outcomes like the level of income and export intensity. We investigate theoretically and empirically how financial constraints affect a firm's innovation and export activities, using unique firm survey...

Emigration first increases before decreasing with economic development. This bell-shaped relationship between emigration and development was first hypothesized by the theory of the mobility transition (Zelinsky, 1971). Although several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the upward segment...

This paper critiques the last decade of research on the effects of high-skill emigration from developing countries, and proposes six new directions for fruitful research. The study singles out a core assumption underlying much of the recent literature, calling it the Lump of Learning model of...