An elite derives its status from its relationship to property, whether physical or human capital. While stable property rights are necessary for everyday business, unstable property rights that result in major institutional changes (such as land reform) may have a positive impact on economic...

Can students' rank in the ability distribution of their class impact their academic achievement? We aim to answer this question using a discontinuity generated by a rule for the distribution of students between classes at a prestigious Brazilian university. The rule means that in almost 30 per...

The telecommunications sector in Africa presents many exciting prospects to international investors - indeed many billion dollar projects are already underway across the continent. Many of the continent's current problems can be traced to the exploitation it has experienced whilst 'doing...

This paper exploits five waves of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) to investigate issues of social and political capital in rural Viet Nam. I analyse membership of the Communist Party, 'mass organizations' (Farmers' Union, Women's Union, etc.) and other voluntary...

This paper uses household panel data from rural Vietnam to explore the effects of having a relative in a position of political or bureaucratic power on farmers' agricultural investment decisions. Our main result is that households significantly increase their investment in land improvement as a...

Recent efforts to reinvigorate the connections between urban planning and health have usefully brought the field back to one of its original roles. Current research, however, has focused on industrialized cities, overlooking some of the important urbanization processes in poor countries. This...

The development of institutions of self-governance in India, and specifically the 2005 reform - the National Rural Health Mission that introduced village health and sanitation committees - provide a unique opportunity to study the effects of the strengthening of the political agency on...

This paper examines the patterns and trends in inter-state migration across Indian states and observes that migration is affected by demographic profile as well as the fiscal profile of states. Econometric estimation suggests that level of vertical federal transfers and its horizontal...