This paper studies the dynamics of fertility in 180 countries in the period 1950-2015 and investigates the determinants of the onset of fertility transitions. The application of Phillips and Sul's (2007) test to fertility rates provides evidence of convergence in three groups of countries. This...

Using data from the China Family Panel Studies, this paper exploits the Compulsory Education Law of China implemented in the 1980s to empirically examine the causal impact of women's education on fertility in rural China by difference-in-differences methods. The results show that an additional...

We examine the relationship between wealth and health through prominent growth indicators and cognitive ability. Cognitive ability is represented by nutritional status. In this study, the proxy variable for nutritional status is BMI since there is a strong relationship between cognitive ability...

The ‘mobility transition’ hypothesis – with emigration first increasing and then decreasing as a country develops – (Zelinsky, 1971) is often interpreted as a stylised fact, which bears the implication that immigration into rich countries will grow as low-income countries develop. This...

This paper examines the effect of national income on the total fertility rate (children born per woman). We estimate the effects on fertility of shocks to national per capita income using plausibly exogenous variations in oil price shock as an instrument for income and using instrumental...

This paper studies human-capital spillovers and its persistence by exploiting a unique event in modern China

This paper studies two experiments of early childhood development programs in The Gambia: one increasing access to services, and another improving service quality. In the first experiment, new community-based early childhood development (ECD) centers were introduced to randomly chosen villages...

As China's firms upgrade their position in the quality ladder, vocational education may become more important. In this paper, we study returns to secondary vocational education in China paying attention to individual heterogeneity. We use instrumental variables based on geographical and...

China’s proclaimed aim of becoming the world’s leader in science, technology and innovation by the mid twenty first century has triggered an intense competition with the United States. The latter, feeling threatened in its supremacy in this field, has reacted forcefully. This GLO Discussion...