We provide new micro evidence on the discussion about the relationship between financial development and welfare. Relying on the concept of local financial development our analysis focuses on three dimensions of household welfare: vulnerability to poverty, investment, and consumption smoothing....

We report the short-term results from a randomized evaluation of a mobile phone literacy program (ABC) in Niger, in which adult literacy students learned how to use mobile phones as part of a literacy class. Students in mobile phone literacy villages showed substantial gains in numeracy exam...

We propose a theory that explains why rational agents start to believe in a causal relationship between unrelated events. Agents send and collect messages through a communication network. If they are convinced of a relationship between two events, they send messages confirming their belief with...

This paper analyses the impact of aid flows on governance. Using an instrumental variable approach and a large country sample, we find that aid has a negative rather than a positive influence on governance. This outcome is robust to various model specifications.

In this paper we analyze the distribution of fertility rates across the world using parametric mixture models. We demonstrate the existence of twin peaks and the division of the world's countries in two distinct components: a high-fertility regime and a low fertility regime. Whereas the...

This study examines the effect of the Everything But Arms (EBA) trade preferences regime on exports from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to the European Union (EU). With this aim, an augmented gravity model is estimated for exports from the 79 ACP countries...

Motivated by current concerns over foreign currency exposures in emerging economies, we examine the currency denomination of business loans made in Bulgaria prior to the current crisis. We analyze information on the requested and granted currency for more than hundred thousand loans granted by...

This paper addresses the question of whether a decentralized government is subject to a stronger level of electoral control than a centralized government. When electoral control is strong an incumbent investing a low level of effort in providing public goods will face a serious threat of being...

One of the most serious weaknesses of the human development index (HDI) is that it considers only average achievements and does not take into account the distribution of human development within a country or by population subgroups. All previous attempts to capture inequality in the HDI have...