This paper uses a large cross-country survey of business firms to assess their influence on government policies. It is found that influence is associated with larger, government-owned firms that have a high degree of ownership concentration. In contrast, foreign ownership matters little. It is...

We analyze the economic consequences on firm profitability, performance, and investments of having another firm in the same market affiliated with a criminal organization. We do so by evaluating the spillover effects of a law providing the judicial administration of organized crime firms through...

This paper studies the economic costs of conflicts at the country and ethnic group settlement level with light output data as measured by orbital satellites and conflict data spatially mapped to latitude and longitude coordinates. Using a worldwide dataset of 7,704 individual ethnic group...

This study reports evidence from an unusual policy intervention – The Reaching Out of School Children (ROSC) project – in Bangladesh where school grants and education allowances are offered to attract hard-to-reach children to schools comprised of a single teacher and a classroom. The...

The effects of social transfers on growth are still unclear. The limitations of aggregated data at sub-national levels have confined the analysis to the use of simulation models and household surveys. As an alternative, this paper contributes to the empirical literature by assessing the effects...

In China, the male-biased sex ratio has increased significantly. Because the one-child policy only applied to the Han Chinese but not to minorities, this unique affirmative policy allows us to identify the causal effect of the one-child policy on the increase in sex ratios by a...

We estimate the causal real economic effects of a randomized anticorruption crackdown on local governments in Brazil over the period 2003-2014 using rich micro-data on corruption and firms. After anti-corruption audits, municipalities experience an increase in economic activity concentrated in...

Using the 1988 earthquake in Nepal as a natural experiment, we examine the long-term repercussions of a large exogenous physical shock on human capital accumulation. We exploit the quasi-random spatial and temporal nature of ground tremors to evaluate the long-term impact of earthquake on...

This paper uses the propensity matching score approach to assess the impact of the IMF's debt limits policy (DLP) on borrowing behavior in countries eligible to borrow from its concessional lending window. The paper finds that countries under the DLP borrow significantly higher amounts of...

This doctoral thesis, organized in three self-contained chapters, provides an analysis of the economic effects associated with the extraction of natural resources and the transition from an economy based on fossil fuel use to an economy relying primarily on renewable energy sources. Chapter 1...