Although the theoretical literature often uses lobbying and corruption synonymously, the empirical literature associates lobbying with the preferred mean for exerting influence in developed countries and corruption with the preferred one in developing countries. This paper challenges these...

Higher wages are generally thought to increase human capital production, particularly in the developing world. We introduce a simple model of human capital production in which investments and time allocation differ by age. Using data on test scores and schooling from rural India, we show that...

This paper reviews the literature on the relationship between gender (in)equality and industrialization in the context of developing countries. It documents past developments, accounting for pre-industrial preconditions that might explain current differences in gender roles across societies....

Cash transfer programs are widely used in settings where child labour is prevalent. Even if many of these programs are explicitly implemented to improve children's welfare, in theory their impact on child labour is undetermined. This paper systematically reviews the empirical evidence on the...

This paper studies BMI as a correlate of the early spatial distribution and intensity of Covid-19 across the districts of India and finds that conditional on a range of individual, household, and regional characteristics, adult BMI significantly predicts the likelihood that the district is a...

In 2000, Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise was published. This report, cosponsored by The World Bank and UNESCO, came at a time of transition in higher education worldwide and helped shape higher education policy and thinking in several developing countries. This...

This paper examines if money matters in education by looking at whether missing resources due to corruption affect student outcomes. We use data from the auditing of Brazil's local governments to construct objective measures of corruption involving educational block grants transferred from the...