This paper uses a three-step Bayesian cross-entropy estimation approach in an environment of noisy and scarce data to estimate behavioral parameters for a computable general equilibrium model. The estimation also measures how labor-augmenting productivity and other structural parameters in the...

Using the most recent purchasing power parity data for 44 sub-Saharan African countries, this paper examines the characteristics of long run growth in Africa between 1975 and 2005. The authors investigate the following issues: cross-country income structure, income convergence, the country level...

This paper examines the country-level dynamics of long-run growth in Africa between 1975 and 2005. The authors examine how growth has affected mobility and the distribution of income among countries. They analyze changes in cross-country income structure and convergence, and look for evidence of...

Aid is good for the poor. This paper uses detailed aid data spanning 60 developing countries over the past two decades to show that social aid significantly and directly benefits the poorest in society, while economic aid increases the income of the poor through growth. This new and unequivocal...

This paper examines support for reducing inequality and for income redistribution to specific groups in Europe and Central Asia. The paper uses the Life in Transition Survey to analyze cross-country differences in redistributive preferences and the determinants of individual-level differences in...

This paper presents a new methodology to measure inequality that optimally combines household survey information and tax records to construct a complete income distribution. Combining the two data sources is necessary because, on the one hand, household surveys do not accurately represent the...

Price and income elasticities estimated from a country's export demand function are used both to predict and to prescribe effective export strategies. But the focus on elasticities has led to the neglect of an important empirical regularity: a strong persistencein the growth rate of a country's...

The author provides theoretical and empirical evidence of a negative association between income inequality and real exchange rates. First, he builds a theoretical model showing the transmission mechanism from inequality to real exchange rates. Second, using cross-country data, he demonstrates...

The authors provide an empirical evaluation of the impact of infrastructure development on economic growth and income distribution using a large panel data set encompassing over 100 countries and spanning the years 1960-2000. The empirical strategy involves the estimation of simple equations for...

The median voter hypothesis is important to endogenous growth theories because it provides the political mechanisms through which voters in more unequal countries re-distribute a greater proportion of income and thus (it is argued), by blunting incentives, reduce the country's growth rate. But...