How can development programmes reach out to remote communities? This paper presents experimental evidence on the impact of a role models intervention that aims to inspire ethnic minority households to start businesses and diversify income sources. The experiment took place in three provinces of...

How can development programmes reach out to remote communities? This paper presents experimental evidence on the impact of a role models intervention that aims to inspire ethnic minority households to start businesses and diversify income sources. The experiment took place in three provinces of...

Labor votes with its feet-individuals migrate from areas of low wages to areas of higher wages. That has been the traditional view, one that has spawned much policy advice to control migration and to affect the location decisions of migrant laborers. But recent research indicates that portfolio...

Taking the family as the rural-to-urban migration decision-making unit, will the “expected-income migration model” accurately predict the level of migration? Consideration of two variables - desire for leisure, and a version to risk - serves to show that the expected-income model yields a...

In this paper I present a new approach to rural-to-urban migration in developing countries. This approach sheds new light on the role of urban-to-rural remittances in bringing about technological change in the agricultural sector of these countries. At the core of the new approach is a utility...

Studies of land property rights usually focus on tenure security and transfer rights. Rights to determine how to use the land are regularly ignored. However, in transition economies such as Vietnam and China, user rights are often limited. Relying on a unique Vietnamese panel data set at both...

Studies of land property rights usually focus on tenure security and transfer rights. Rights to determine how to use the land are regularly ignored. However, in transition economies such as Vietnam and China, user rights are often limited. Relying on a unique Vietnamese panel data set at both...

We demonstrate how altruism can flourish in a population of nonaltruists. We assume that each individual plays a one-shot prisoner's dilemma game with his or her sibling and that the probability than an individual survives to reproduce is proportional to his or her payoff in this game. We model...

We demonstrate how altruism can surge in a population of nonaltruists. We assume that each individual plays a one-shot prisoner's dilemma game with his or her sibling, or with a stranger, and that the probability that an individual survives to reproduce is proportional to his or her payoff in...

We study the joint role of altruism and impatience, and the impact of evolution in the formation of long-term time preferences and in the determination of optimal consumption and optimal bequests. We show how the consumption paths of dynasties relate to altruism and to impatience and we reason...