Analysis of the relationship between aid and growth by Burnside and Dollar found that the better a country's policies, the more effective aid is in raising growth in that country. But this result has been criticized for being sensitive to choice of sample and for neglecting shocks. The authors...

Uncertainty about commodity export prices is important to developing countries -- both governments and producers -- that export primary commodities. Commodity export price uncertainty is typically measured as the standard deviation in the terms of trade. There are three problems with this...

The author estimates the effects on growth of commodity price shocks, and uncertainty within an established empirical growth model. Ex-post shocks, and ex-ante uncertainty have been treated in the empirical literature as if they were synonymous. But they are distinct concepts, and it is both...

The role of 'first movers' in fragile states is critical: they grow and diversify markets in ways that no other firms do, generating disproportionate impact in terms of development and stability. But pioneer firms are rare in fragile states. This study documents their profile, their challenges,...

The connections between transport infrastructure and economic development have been extensively analyzed in previous research, but little is known about the cost of infrastructure investments in poor countries. This paper examines drivers of unit costs of construction and maintenance of...

The accumulation of decent housing matters both because of the difference it makes to living standards and because of its centrality to economic development. The consequences for living standards are far-reaching. In addition to directly conferring utility, decent housing improves health and...

The authors compare two contrasting motivations for rebellion: greed and grievance. Most rebellions are ostensibly in pursuit of a cause, supported by a narrative of grievance. But since grievance assuagement through rebellion is a public good that a government will not supply, economists...

More effective development aid could greatly improve poverty reduction in the areas where poverty reduction is expected to lag: Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. Even more potent would be significant policy reform in the countries themselves. The authors develop a model of...

The authors model the duration of large-scale, violent civil conflicts, applying hazard functions to a comprehensive data set on such conflicts for the period 1960-99. They find that the duration of conflicts is determined by a substantially different set of variables than those that determine...

Using global data for the period 1960-99, the authors estimate neighborhood arms races. They find that the level of military expenditure is strongly influenced by the expenditure of neighbors. The authors estimate an "arms race multiplier," finding that an initial exogenous increase in military...