This paper discusses the analytical foundations of international comparisons for assessing a country's potential for improvement along various dimensions of social and economic development. The paper presents the Stochastic Frontier approach and applies it to estimate feasible frontiers or...

In this paper, Arbache, Go, and Page examine the recent acceleration of growth in Africa. Unlike the past, the performance is now registered broadly across several types of countries-particularly the oil-exporting and resource-intensive countries and, in more recent years, the large- and...

The main purpose of this paper is to provide a critical overview of the recent empirical contributions that use cross country data to study the effect of product market regulation and reform on a country's macroeconomic performance. After a brief review of the theoretical literature and of...

In Localizing Development, Mansuri and Rao survey theory and evidence for development strategies based on local community empowerment. This note extends their theoretical argument by focusing on local government as a vital source of new leadership. Local leaders who provide better public service...

This paper investigates the effects of multiple weather shocks on household welfare in Mozambique, as well as some of the coping responses and price mechanisms at play. The analysis employs a triple-difference strategy that exploits variation in the shocks across space, time, and cropping...

There is a large empirical literature analyzing' catastrophic' medical expenses. The' basic' approach defines expenses as catastrophic if they exceed a prespecified percentage of total consumption or income; the approach, in effect, tells us whether expenses cause a large percentage reduction in...

This paper evaluates whether mangroves can mitigate the impact of hurricanes on economic activity. The paper assembles a new, regionwide panel data set that measures local economic activity using nightlights, potential hurricane damages using a detailed hurricane windstorm model, and mangrove...

The welfare impact of a natural disaster depends on its effect on consumption, not only on the direct asset losses and human losses that are usually estimated and reported after disasters. This paper proposes a framework to assess disaster-related consumption losses, starting from an estimate of...

Mangrove forests can reduce the vulnerability of adjacent coastal lands from storm surges by slowing the flow of water. Although the potential utility of mangroves in disaster risk reduction is increasingly recognized by coastal managers, efficient use of this ecosystem-based protection is often...

Resilience against infrastructure failure is essential for ensuring the health and safety of communities during and following natural hazard situations. Understanding how natural hazards impact society in terms of economic cost, recovery time, and damages to critical infrastructure is essential...