The past decade has witnessed a surge in private, volunteer activity across the globe, generating an optimistic belief in the potential of "civil society" in "filling" the niches where both the state and markets have failed. While this has stirred a burgeoning academic interest in the third...

What can microfinance contribute to the creation of employment and the increase in well-being of the population? We argue that microfinance has an important benefit for the poor, particularly for subsistence entrepreneurs, as a means of handling shocks and smoothing income. By helping to assure...

"Do firms in developing countries shift trade towards developed economies as a result of high economic growth? The matched customs-manufacturing firm data used in this study confront this hypothesized link with empirical evidence. Our analysis reveals a rising low-income country trade share...

Why is GDP so much more volatile in poor countries than in rich ones? To answer this question, we propose a theory of technological diversification. Production makes use of different input varieties, which are subject to imperfectly correlated shocks. As in endogenous growth models,...