This paper uses household surveys from 13 developing countries to describe consumption choices, health and education … classes in the development process. We find that the average middle class person is not an entrepreneur in waiting: while he …

conditions for sustained economic growth and development by deepening democracy, enhancing the stability of political regimes and …

Low growth equilibria with low investment in human capital generally tend to persist till an external shock affects the … economy. In this paper we use data on Christian missions to proxy a long-lasting educational shock in Africa. We estimate the … effect of this shock on the quality of children which we proxy using the rate of underweight children. Consistent with the …

impact of vote-buying on growth. We consider a model with a poverty trap where redistribution can promote growth. We show … that vote-buying contributes to the persistence of poverty as taxed wealthy people buy votes from poor people. We then show …

choose the non-professional education track. Those who might have otherwise pursued higher, professional education may forgo … education since, they will be overqualified in the host country. This will have a long run affect. As time goes on, therefore …

framework of shock transmission to a developing country from the macro- to the micro-levels-considering also possible adverse … shocks could result in poverty traps, generating effects that harm not just present, but also succeeding generations. Social … be eroded) will be critical, not just in breaking the cycle of poverty, but also in safeguarding countries' future …

African development; (ii) income distribution, inequality, and poverty; and (iii) economic structure, interdependence, and …This paper is essentially autobiographical and describes Erik Thorbecke's journey through the history of development … professional career as a development economist and his research interactions with major contributors to the discipline. The next …

The literature on poverty convergence is sparse and much of the empirical evidence relies on Ravallion (2012) who found … a lack of poverty convergence across some ninety Less Developed Countries (LDCs) during 1977-2007. This paper revisits … cross-country poverty convergence using data from the same sources but an extended period, i.e. 1977-2014. We find that …

Empirical evidence in the sparse literature on poverty convergence currently relies on cross-sectional analysis, where … Less Developed Countries (LDCs) starting out poorer are found to have enjoyed no faster subsequent poverty reduction during … the past three decades than those starting out richer, as initial poverty retards growth and makes it less effective in …

A 2015 World Bank report on attainment of Millennium Development Goals concludes that the number of extremely poor has … dropped substantially in all regions with the exception of Sub-Saharan Africa. We assess if poverty is in the African gene by … Africa. Ashraf and Galor have concluded that cross-country differences in development can be explained by genetic diversity …