Belt and Road projects in the Eurasian Heartland (Central Asia and the Caucasus, Russia, and Belarus) have predominately focused on the exploitation of the region's natural resources rather than on developing infrastructure, building industrial facilities, or partnering in innovations. However,...

The shift away from manual and routine cognitive work, and towards non-routine cognitive work is a key feature of labor markets. There is no evidence, however, if the relative importance of various tasks differs between workers performing seemingly similar jobs in different countries. We develop...

This paper explores how the distribution of credit supply within an industry affects that industry's export intensity (the export-to-sales ratio) and export propensity (the ratio of the number of exporters to the total number of firms). Using a heterogeneous firm trade model, we derive two...

We provide a new explanation for the stronger relationship between income and subjective well-being (SWB) found in cross-sectional versus panel studies based on the predictions of a rational expectations model of utility maximization with permanent and transitory income shocks. The model...

We provide the first evidence that promotion incentives can influence effort of employees in the public sector by studying China's system of annual evaluations and promotions for teachers. Theoretical predictions from a tournament model of promotion incentives are tested using panel data on...

About 10% of primary school students in developing countries have poor vision, but very few of them wear glasses. Almost no research examines the impact of poor vision on school performance, and simple OLS estimates could be biased because studying harder may adversely affects one's vision. This...

In many developing and emerging economies, rapid income growth and changing demographics is leading to heightened demand for energy-intensive urban transportation. This study provides a comprehensive empirical framework for analyzing how income, age, and education influence individual energy use...

We provide the first household survey-based evidence on the impact of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake on the welfare of rural households. Asset and income losses were substantial, especially in seriously affected areas. Our main finding is that there was an overwhelming government response to the...

This paper provides new evidence on educational disruptions caused by the Cultural Revolution and identifies the returns to schooling in urban China by exploiting individual-level variation in the effects of city-wide disruptions to education. The return to college is estimated at 49.8% using a...