This paper investigates the traits of the self-employed entrepreneurs in urban China, an economy rife with informational and institutional imperfections, under-developed financial markets, but a growing and important non-state sector. The self-employed make on average 20% more than...

A large literature describes how local risk sharing networks can help individuals smooth consumption in the face of idiosyncratic economic shocks.  However, when an entire community faces a large covariate shock, and when the transaction costs of transfers are high, these risk sharing networks...

Recently, the international community has increased its commitment to prosecute malicious dictators - for example by establishing the International Criminal Court.  This has raised the international community's loss associated with being time-inconsistent (i.e.: granting amnesties ex post), the...

In many rural settings, informal mutual support networks have evolved into semiformal insurance groups, such as funeral societies.  Using detailed panel data for six villages in Ethiopia, we can distinguish two types of contracts, in terms of whether payments are only made at the time of death...

Standard models of investment predict that credit-constrained firms should grow rapidly when given additional capital, and that how this capital is provided should not affect decisions to invest in the business or consume the capital.  We randomly gave cash and in-kind grants to male- and...

The industrial organization of developing countries is characterized by: (i) pervasive use of subcontracting arrangements among small firms, (ii) "missing middle" in the firm size distribution, and (iii) financially constrained firms.  This paper studies an incomplete contract model in which...

Using global data we examine the dynamics of migration from developing to developed countries.  Origin and destination countries are characterized by substantial diffrences in incomes, political rights and cultures.  Incentives as well as costs shape the decision to migrate.  One powerful...