Conventional wisdom has it that global financial markets were as well integrated in the 1890s as in the 1990s, but that it took several post-war decades to regenerate the connections that existed before 1914. This view has emerged from a variety of tests for world financial capital market...

There were three epochs of growth experience after the mid 19th century for what is now called the OECD 'club'; the late 19th century, the middle years between 1914 and 1950, and the late 20th century. The late 19th and the late 20th century epochs were ones of overall fast growth and...

A Third World data base documenting commodity and factor prices 1870-1940 has been collected, yielding annual time series on wage/rental ratios, land/labor ratios, the terms of trade, and other explanatory variables for: Argentina, Burma, Egypt, Japan, Korea, the Punjab, Taiwan, Thailand and...

Reducing global poverty and addressing climate change and other environmental crises are among the most important challenges facing humanity today. This review article discusses one way in which these problems are intertwined: economic development affects the environment. I synthesize recent...

This article reviews the recent literature in economics on small-scale entrepreneurship ("microentrepreneurship") in low-income countries. Major themes in the literature include the determinants and consequences of joining the formal sector; the impacts of access to credit and other financial...

This article discusses cultural barriers to women's participation and success in the labor market in developing countries. I begin by describing how gender norms influence the relationship between economic development and female employment, as well as how gender norms vary substantially across...

This paper documents a stylized fact not well appreciated in the literature. The Third World has been undergoing an emigration life cycle since the 1960s, and, except for Africa, emigration rates have been level or even declining since a peak in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. The current...

Poor countries are more volatile than rich countries, and we know this volatility impedes their growth. We also know that commodity price volatility is a key source of those shocks. This paper explores commodity and manufactures price over the past three centuries to answer three questions: Has...

Two important recent trends in most developing countries have are the rise in female labor force participation and the closing of gender gaps in school enrollment. This article begins by exploring the causes of the increases in female education, which include greater job availability and policy...

Is the high degree of gender inequality in developing countries--in education, personal autonomy, and more--explained by underdevelopment itself? Or do the societies that are poor today hold certain cultural views that lead to gender inequality? This article discusses several mechanisms through...