An importexceeds a "normal" level. This paper identifies various internal and external factors that can contribute to the emergence of agricultural import surges in developing countries and discusses their relevance. External factors play a rather minor role. Internal policies, whether carried...

We propose a novel approach to measuring the causal effect of family structureon a child’s outcomes. In a war, some fathers are killed in action and cannotreturn to their families. This creates a natural experiment in which the effectsof a father’s absence can be tested. Using data from the...

To examine the impact of Rwanda`s 1994 genocide on children`s schooling, the authors combine two cross-sectional household surveys collected before and after the genocide. The identification strategy uses pre-war data to control for an age group`s baseline schooling and exploits variation across...

Between 1993 and 1994, extremist militia groups carried out the extermination of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the genocides of Burundi and Rwanda. Nearly one million people were killed and thousands were forcibly uprooted from their homes...