This research examines variations in the diffusion of agriculture across countries and archaeological sites. The theory suggests that a society´s history of climatic shocks shaped the timing of its adoption of farming. Specifically, as long as climatic disturbances did not lead to a collapse of...

This research argues that variations in the interplay between cultural assimilation and cultural diffusion have played a significant role in giving rise to differential patterns of economic development across the globe. Societies that were geographically less vulnerable to cultural diffusion,...

We critically evaluate the empirical basis for the so-called resource curse and find that, despite the topic’s popularity in economics and political science research, this apparent paradox is a red herring. The most commonly used measure of ‘resource abundance’ can be more usefully...

This paper examines the resource curse and its transmission channels by resource type. We review and synthesize existing theories of the transmission channels of the curse. This synthesis suggests that (1) relating the transmission channels to the characteristics of different types of resources,...

We critically evaluate the empirical basis for the so-called resource curse and find that, despite the topic's popularity in economics and political science research, this apparent paradox is a red herring. The most commonly used measure of 'resource abundance' can be more usefully interpreted...

Although the potential causes and consequences of recent increases in international food prices have attracted widespread attention, many existing appraisals are superficial and/or piecemeal. This paper attempts to provide a more comprehensive review of these issues based on the best and most...

A large share of cross-country differences in productivity is explained by differences in agricultural productivity. Using a combination of sub-national agricultural statistics and geospatial datasets on crop-specific potential yields, we study the main drivers of this variation from a...

We investigate the causes of increases in economic freedom by examining a cross-section of countries from 1990-2010. We find that higher initial GNI per capita is associated with larger subsequent increases in economic freedom. We also found countries are less likely to improve their freedom the...