This paper offers the first evidence on the prevalence of a central actor in modern growth theory?the engineer. Using newly collected sub-national, and international data as well as historical case studies, it then argues that differences in innovative capacity, captured by the density of...

This paper assesses the role of ideas in economic change, combining economic and historical analysis with insights from psychology, sociology and anthropology. Belief systems shape the system of categories ( "pre-confirmatory bias" ) and perceptions (confirmatory bias), and are themselves...

This paper investigates the potential of information technology to improve public service delivery and empower citizens. The investigation uses two randomized natural experiments in the renewal of national identification cards by the Bolivian Police. The first experiment arises from the random...

This paper takes advantage of repeated cross-section household surveys and a sharp discontinuity created by the introduction of an unconditional cash transfer to elders. The paper evaluates the impact of these cash transfers on the educational expenditures for children within a household. The...

Gender-based wage discrimination is a highly researched area of labor economics. However, most studies on this topic have focused on schooling and paid limited attention to the mechanisms through which cognitive and noncognitive skills influence wages. This paper uses data from adults in seven...

Large oil reserves off the coast of Brazil may substantially increase the country?s oil revenue in the future. A natural resource "curse" could be the consequence if an appropriate share of the oil revenue is not invested. This issue is addressed in this paper for Brazil both theoretically and...