This paper investigates cross-sectoral productivity differentials in South African industry and their distributional consequences. The analysis shows that typically, traded sectors have experienced low productivity growth over the past decade, while skill intensive service sectors have had...

Fiscal buffers have shrunk across the world. This paper argues that limited fiscal room in emerging market economies today is partly due to the commodity super cycle of 2000-15. The super cycle created the mirage that economic performance had structurally improved, mistaking a long,...

Vote-buying is pervasive, but not everywhere. What explains significant variations across countries in the greater use of pre-electoral transfers to mobilize voters relative to the use of pre-electoral promises of post-electoral transfers? This paper explicitly models the trade-offs that...

This paper introduces a new explanation for political budget cycles: politicians have stronger incentives to increase spending around elections in the presence of younger political parties. Previous research has shown that political budget cycles are larger when voters are uninformed about...

Improving the investment climate is among the top priorities in development. The World Bank Group's Doing Business reports have become an important guide and benchmark to inform regulatory reforms aimed at unleashing the potential of the private sector. This paper discusses the potential role of...

Credit rating agencies have drawn criticism for failing to anticipate and deter root causes of the 2008-2009 financial crisis in the United States. However, this paper presents evidence that credit rating agencies regularly anticipate and deter governments in emerging democracies from...