We evaluate the effect of natural resources on political regimes. We use the synthetic control method to compare evolution of the democracy level of countries affected by giant oil discoveries with the weighted democracy level of countries that do not incur the same event and have similar...

This paper analyses the implication of contract farming on gender inequalities in rural Mozambique. Contract farming is often considered one of the major tools of agribusiness development: it broadly includes those arrangements under which producers commit to provide a pre-defined quantity of...

This paper presents new evidence on the employment effects of a large increase in agricultural minimum wages in South Africa using anonymized tax data. We add to the minimum wage literature by differentiating employment effects resulting from the destruction of existing jobs and from the slower...

The focus of this paper is the role played in rural contexts by contract farming agreements between smallholders and private investors. These contracts can take different forms, but in general are agreements under which producers commit to supply produce to a buyer firm. They are - at least on...

Using big data from the Brazilian public procurement system, this research aims to investigate what factors are associated with the occurrence of anticompetitive practices in electronic bidding. Our analysis considers all services contracted between 2014 and 2017. The study uses the logit...

Education is associated with a range of positive micro and macro effects. It is hence no surprise that donors have recently increased the amount of official development aid specifically focused on restoring and maintaining education in less-developed states. While much attention has been paid to...

The micro-macro paradox has been revived. Despite broadly positive evaluations at the micro and meso-levels, recent literature doubts the ability of foreign aid to foster economic growth and development. This paper assesses the aid-growth literature and, taking inspiration from the program...

Using the 2004-05 India Human Development Survey data, we estimate and decompose the earnings of household businesses owned by historically marginalized social groups known as Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SCSTs), and non-SCSTs across the earnings distribution. We find clear differences in...

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are now widely used in development economics. However, their use is often resisted by non-governmental development organizations. The objections they raise differ between the three types of activities of such non-governmental organizations (NGOs): capacity...

The World Bank is uniquely positioned to identify and disseminate innovative development practices. Based on his thirty-year experience as a World Bank staff member, the author takes an institutional perspective on the innovation climate at the World Bank focusing on dominant development...