This paper concerns the institutional origins of economic development, emphasizing the cases of nineteenth-century India and Africa. Colonial institutions-the law, western style property rights, newspapers and statistical analysis-played an important part in the emergence of Indian public and...

Despite significant changes in poverty overall in Latin America, the proportion of indigenous peoples living in poverty did not change much from the early 1990s to the present. While earlier work focused on human development, much less has been done on the distribution and returns to...

A substantial gap in test scores exists between indigenous and non-indigenous students in Latin America. Using test score data for 3rd and 4th year primary school pupils in Guatemala and Peru, and 5th grade pupils in Mexico, the authors assess the magnitude of the indigenous and non-indigenous...

The authors use panel data for Mexico for 1997 to 1999 to test several assumptions regarding the impact of a conditional cash transfer program on child labor, emphasizing the differential impact on indigenous households. Using data from the conditional cash transfer program in Mexico PROGRESA...

This article explores the links between conflict, land and indigenous peoples in several regions of Mindano, the Philippines, notorious for their levels of poverty and conflict. The analysis takes advantage of the unprecedented concurrence of data from the most recent, 2020, census; an...

Bringing together history and economics, this paper presents a historical and processual understanding of women's economic marginalization in Sub-Saharan Africa from the pre-colonial period to the end of colonial rule. It is not that women have not been economically active or productive; it is...

At the outset of China's reform period, the country had a far higher poverty rate than for Africa as a whole. Within five years that was no longer true. This paper tries to explain how China escaped from a situation in which extreme poverty persisted due to failed and unpopular policies. While...

In this paper, Arbache, Go, and Page examine the recent acceleration of growth in Africa. Unlike the past, the performance is now registered broadly across several types of countries-particularly the oil-exporting and resource-intensive countries and, in more recent years, the large- and...

Trade can be a key driver of growth for African countries, as it has been for those countries, particularly in East Asia, that have experienced high and sustained rates of growth. Economic partnership agreements with the European Union could be instrumental in a competitiveness framework, but to...

This paper examines the country-level dynamics of long-run growth in Africa between 1975 and 2005. The authors examine how growth has affected mobility and the distribution of income among countries. They analyze changes in cross-country income structure and convergence, and look for evidence of...