Many countries are moving from employer-based to universal health coverage, which can generate crowd out. In Mexico, Seguro Popular provides public health coverage to the uninsured. Using the gradual roll-out of the system at the municipality level, we estimate that Seguro Popular had no effect...

This study derives structural implications of the Dutch disease in oil-exporting countries due to permanent oil price shocks from a typical model. We then test these implications in manufacturing sector data across a wide group of countries including oil-exporters covering 1977 to 2004. The...

In transition and developing countries, we observe rather high levels of corruption even they have democratic political systems. This is surprising from a political economy perspective, as a majority of the people generally suffers from high corruption levels. Our model based on the fact that...

In many developing countries, we observe rather high levels of corruption. This is surprising from a political economy perspective, as the majority of people generally suffers from high corruption levels. We explain why citizens do not exert enough political pressure to reduce corruption if...

Uganda is internationally recognised for its extensive legal and constitutional provisions for ensuring the rights of the disabled, in addition to the presence of a number of impairment-specific disabled persons' organisations (DPOs), which provide informal advocacy and support structures. Using...

The media narratives with respect to EU external policies and their effects on developing countries generally paint a picture of unequal power dynamics and negative externalities, particularly with respect to international trade and land grabbing. In this paper, I use trade data to argue that...

We evaluate the aggregate effects of expansions of credit supply in environments where subsistence self-employment is prevalent. We extend a standard macro development model to include unemployment risk, which becomes a key driver of selection into self-employment. The model is consistent with...

We explore the effect of historical ethnic borders on contemporary conflict in Africa. We document that both the intensive and extensive margins of contemporary conflict are higher close to historical ethnic borders. Exploiting variations across artificial regions within an ethnicity's...

Selection into self-employment among the poor is dominated by subsistence concerns, which leads to high levels of unproductive self-employment in developing countries. We incorporate this view into an otherwise benchmark macro-development model by allowing for labor frictions. Standard models...

We study the role of proximity to historical ethnic borders in determining individual land ownership in Sub-Saharan Africa. Following an instrumental variable strategy, we document that individuals have a lower likelihood of owning land near historical ethnic borders. In particular, the...