Many governments in developing countries have pursued policies targeting specific geographic areas over the past several decades. However, only a few have rigorously evaluated the causal impact of these interventions. This paper examines the effectiveness of a prominent place-based policy in...

This paper proposes a methodology for identifying urban areas that combines subjective assessments with machine learning, and applies it to India, a country where several studies see the official urbanization rate as an under-estimate. For a representative sample of cities, towns and villages,...

This paper takes a fresh look at growth convergence in India, combining insights from macroeconomics and urban economics. It departs from the existing literature in three ways. First, the paper assesses growth patterns across districts and across places below the district level instead of taking...

This paper develops a tractable method to identify urban areas and applies it to India, where urbanization is messy. Google Earth images are assessed subjectively to determine whether a stratified large sample of Indian cities, towns and villages, as officially defined, are urban or rural in...

Policy makers in developing countries, including India, are increasingly sensitive to the links between spatial transformation and economic development. However, the empirical knowledge available on those links is most often insufficient to guide policy decisions. There is no shortage of case...

Using bilateral migration flow data from the 2010 population census of Nepal, this paper provides evidence on the importance of public infrastructure and services in determining migration flows. The empirical specification, based on a generalized nested logit model, corrects for the non-random...

This study examines the impact of voluntary environmental disclosure on the cost of equity capital and firm value, and on the public perception about a firm's environmental performance. A salient feature of the study is that our analysis controls for corporate environmental performance using...

This study examines what factors affect firms' decisions to adopt a proactive environmental strategy and whether pursuing proactive environmental strategies leads to improved financial performance. Using longitudinal data from 1990-2003 for the four most polluting industries in the U.S. (Pulp &...

This study examines the determinants and consequences of corporate charitable contributions in China. Using a large sample of listed firms from 2001 to 2006, we find that firms with political connections are more likely to make charitable contributions. Firms owned by local governments are more...