Few would contest that teachers are a very important determinant of whether students learn in school. Yet, in the face of compelling evidence that many students are not learning what they are expected to learn, how to improve teacher performance has been the focus of much policy debate in rich...

Electricity infrastructure is one of the most important development challenges in Africa. While more resources are clearly needed to invest in new capacities, it is also important to promote energy efficiency and manage the increasing demand for power. This paper evaluates one of the recent...

This paper studies the cross-country patterns of risky innovation and growth through the lens of international trade. It uses a simple theoretical framework of risky quality upgrading by firms under varying levels of financial development to derive two predictions. First, the mean rate of...

This paper provides empirical evidence on firm recoveries from financial system collapses in developing countries (systemic sudden stops episodes), and compares them with the experience in the United States in the 2008 financial crisis. Prior research found that economies recover from systemic...

This paper studies the growth effects of externalities associated with intergenerational health transmission, health persistence, and women's occupational constraints-- with particular emphasis on the role of access to infrastructure. The first part provides a review of the evidence on these...

This paper provides an historical overview of both the evolution of the economic performance of the developing world and the evolution of economic thought on development policy. The 20th century was broadly characterized by divergence between high-income countries and the developing world, with...

The emergence of substantial fiscal deficits and a large build up of government debt in major advanced economies will inevitably lead to a period of fiscal consolidation in coming years. In an earlier paper, McKibbin and Stoeckel (2010) explored the effects of this fiscal adjustment in advanced...

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...

This paper examines the effects of inflation targeting on industrial and emerging economies' output growth over the "globalization years" of 1986-2004. Controlling for trade openness and two indicators of financial globalization, the authors find systematic positive and significant effects of...

This paper surveys the recent literature which examines the impact of business climate variables on productivity and growth in developing countries using enterprise surveys. Comparable enterprise surveys today cover some 70,000 firms in over 100 countries around the world. The literature that...