In this paper, we examine the wage returns to an extra year of primary school using a policy reform in Egypt, which reduced compulsory primary schooling from 6 to 5 years. Since this policy changed the duration of primary school while providing the same diploma, we can estimate the human capital...

In a general equilibrium in which bribe-extracting bureaucrats can endogenously choose regulatory burden and delay, the effective (not just nominal) red tape and bribery can be positively correlated across firms. Using data from three worldwide firm surveys, this paper finds evidence consistent...

The stagnation of Egyptian living standards in the first half of the 20th century has been widely presumed in economic history. However, this conventional wisdom is partially based on a fragmented body of evidence on aggregate output. In particular, no estimates of national income exist for any...