Important progress toward gender equality has been made in the past decades, but inequalities linked to gender norms, stereotypes, and the unequal distribution of housework and childcare responsibilities persist. Lifetime events such as marriage and parenthood bring substantial changes in time...

This paper uses unique data collected in rural Pakistan to assess the extent to which consanguinity, which is widespread in North Africa, Central and West Asia, and most parts of South Asia, is linked to child cognitive ability and nutritional status. As economic benefits of marrying cousins may...

While there are many positive societal implications of increased female labor force opportunities, some theoretical models and empirical evidence suggest that working can increase a woman's risk of suffering domestic violence. Using a dataset collected in peri-urban Dhaka, this analysis...

The production of export goods has become increasingly unbundled, and countries positioning to become more integrated in the global economy are increasingly looking toward global value chains. This paper uses the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/World Trade Organization's...

The spread of global value chains (GVCs) has given rise to new statistical tools, the Inter-Country Input-Output tables and new analytical frameworks aimed at properly identifying production linkages between and within economies. However, several important questions remain unaddressed. This...

China has defied the declining trend in domestic content in exports in many countries. This paper studies China?s rising domestic content in exports using firm- and customs transaction-level data. The approach embraces firm heterogeneity and hence reduces aggregation bias. The study finds that...

This paper develops a novel methodology to measure the quantity of jobs and value of wages embodied in exports for a large number of countries and sectors for intermittent years between 1995 and 2011. The resulting Labor Content of Exports database allows the examination of the direct...

Services trade constitute roughly one-third of trade on a value added basis, and much of this is concentrated in margin services (transport, logistics) linked to trade in goods. However, producer services are also part of the value added contained in traded goods. This is especially true in high...

This paper provides up-to-date characterization of the association between trade and GDP comovement -- also called the trade comovement slope -- for 150 countries from 1962 to 2011. The paper shows that trade is significantly linked to more GDP correlation, either directly through bilateral...

The emergence of global value chains has opened up new ways to achieve development and industrialization. However, new evidence shows that not all countries have gained from participating in global value chains, and that country-specific characteristics matter for economic upgrading in global...